Understanding the Future of Work through an AI Lens

Subrao Shenoy
3 min readFeb 24, 2021
Source: Deposit Photos

According to the World Economic Forum, AI will create more than 133 million new jobs by 2022, nearly twice as many as the organization says AI will displace. That is the reality of AI and machine learning in the future of work. Although there is no denying that some roles will fall and become obsolete, while others will appear as if out of nowhere. AI, in the same way that it has empowered people to look more deeply and systematically at large sets of data, will equip companies with the means to expect more of their talent. Thus, AI will also equip talent with the means to do more than they could have done otherwise.

Pew Research Center, for their part, organized a group of technologists and researchers to speculate about the once-unimaginable possibilities of AI that are already within our reach. Many said that it was possible AI could match human intelligence in the near future, especially in areas such as problem solving, reasoning, learning, pattern recognition, speech recognition, and language translation. We can already see the rudimentary versions of the innovative technologies, in the form of personal assistants powered by natural language processing systems and computers engineered as chess champions and stock market gurus.

For most people, however, those technologies are little more than novelties. It is also important for us to realize that while AI is changing the world in those ways, it is also shaping the future of work more directly, in the form of the tools that everyday professionals are using. Digital signing, as an example, is making it possible for professionals to verify document authenticity, avoiding the sort of issues that can quickly turn into headaches for a business. Cryptography and virtually uncrackable storage systems are guaranteeing security further, affording teams with the confidence they need in their most sensitive documents.

Collaboration, though, seems poised to undergo the most striking revolution of all. Through its intelligent and data-driven processes, AI is enhancing the potential contributions that each professional can make to a team. Organizations can tap into AI-powered collaboration tools in order to maintain a clearer sense of order than ever before, reducing costs and lead times and improving their outcomes. Everyone benefits from this type of tool, the system in theory learning what each person needs to do for their work throughout the day and eliminating processes that would have become bottlenecks in the past.

The thrust of the differences that we are going to see in the future of work is two-fold. For all of the doom and gloom that some pundits have used to paint AI and machine learning, the truth will be a lot brighter for many businesses and professionals. plumedot offer tools for digital signing, AI-enabled business processes, and immutable record keeping, all technologies that facilitate jobs, rather than eliminate them. One way to see the future of work is as something due for improvement — and all of the AI tools for collaboration as the means by which that improvement is possible.

Sources

https://www.weforum.org/press/2018/09/machines-will-do-more-tasks-than-humans-by-2025-but-robot-revolution-will-still-create-58-million-net-new-jobs-in-next-five-years/

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/12/10/artificial-intelligence-and-the-future-of-humans

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Subrao Shenoy

Subrao is a serial Silicon Valley entrepreneur with many startups. Built a successful PropTech from ground up and now CEO of an AI based future of Work startup.