0:00

It's not that not that Gen AI will take

0:02

your job, right? that It's the person that

0:04

knows how to use the tools going probably

0:06

going to take your job. You can can

0:08

protect people, but you can't protect

0:10

jobs. Jobs will continue to evolve and

0:13

they always will they always have to be

0:15

a bit of a dreamer, bit of It's

0:17

gonna be really amazing if you look

0:19

into the future to see what could

0:21

be with this technology. this technology. Two years

0:23

ago, it all felt like

0:25

the world, including our jobs

0:27

and how we work, would

0:29

change forever. ChatGPT and and other

0:31

similar Gen AI technologies crashed

0:34

onto the scene, impacting the

0:36

way we think about everything,

0:38

from drug discovery how we how

0:40

we communicate. Now, Now, more

0:42

than two years later, how

0:44

is it changing how businesses

0:46

run run? And how can organizations

0:48

roll out the technology to

0:50

create a real impact, helping

0:52

workers become more... productive along the

0:54

way. along the way. From

0:56

PWC's management and Business, this

0:58

is and Tomorrow. this I'm Lizzie

1:00

O 'Leary, a I'm and

1:03

journalist. Leary, I'm Femi OK,

1:05

a broadcaster and journalist. This

1:07

week, how is Gen

1:09

AI transforming the job market?

1:12

A.I. transforming the job

1:14

market? Today, we're Today, we'll be

1:16

talking to Giddell. chief economist

1:18

at and Indeed, a global job

1:20

site. She's been looking into

1:23

how how Gen A.I. is transforming the workforce.

1:25

First, we have PWC's global workforce leader,

1:27

Pete Brown, with us us talk about

1:29

what we can learn from companies

1:32

considered early adopters of Gen AI.

1:34

of Gen Welcome back to the show,

1:36

Pete. the show, Pete. Thank Thank you, families.

1:38

Love you to see you. we have talked

1:40

about about Gen A.I. the workforce and

1:42

workplace on this show before, show

1:44

but what is the conversation

1:46

that is happening today in companies?

1:49

Are they eager to embrace

1:51

this technology? As I As I reflect

1:53

through probably every single conversation I've

1:55

had with a client the the

1:57

last year, and there I say I I

1:59

added all my colleagues at PWC as

2:01

well. I don't think I've had

2:03

any conversation where the words Gen

2:05

A.I. haven't come up. Does that

2:07

mean they want to embrace it?

2:10

I think it depends on the

2:12

organisation. Some are and some are

2:14

yet to start, but it certainly

2:16

sparked huge curiosity and interest. There's

2:18

no doubt. What was really surprising

2:20

to me, though, against that backdrop

2:22

and this tsunami of interest? is

2:24

that we survey workers every year

2:27

just to work out what's on

2:29

their mind, what's motivating them in

2:31

the world of work, and only

2:33

12% of workers say they're using

2:35

gen AI in their day-to-day work.

2:37

That was a surprisingly low number

2:39

for me. So I think to

2:41

answer your question, huge conversation topic,

2:44

varying degrees of implementation, Later, we'll

2:46

hear how Gen A.I. is completely

2:48

transforming the way some businesses work.

2:50

But first, what workers really need

2:52

to know about what Gen A.I.

2:54

will change in our jobs. FEMI,

2:56

you spoke to Svenu Goudell, who's

2:58

been looking at this in her

3:01

role as chief economist and indeed.

3:03

Exactly. And I began by asking

3:05

her about the type of changes

3:07

and trends she's no seeing in

3:09

her work. AI

3:11

is everywhere, right? We have been

3:13

talking about it nonstop and are

3:15

actually able to see some of these

3:17

movements in our data. So we developed

3:20

a new generative AI tracker that looks

3:22

at all the different mentions of gen

3:24

AI inside job postings. could be

3:26

either for the creators of Gen A.

3:29

I, for example, someone that has to

3:31

write a particular prompt or a user

3:33

of Gen A. A marketing professional that

3:36

has to be able to deal with

3:38

these tools. And we saw the last

3:40

two years an 83X increase in

3:42

those mentions, but we're still only about

3:45

two out of every thousand jobs mentioning

3:47

some sort of Gen A. I term.

3:49

So still early days here. So, you

3:52

are in a position to see trends

3:54

across different economies in different parts of

3:56

the world. What are you seeing? They're

3:59

looking at what types of frameworks.

4:01

do we need to have in place

4:03

in order for Gen A.I. to be

4:06

successful in a given economy, right? Do

4:08

you need certain digitization to have happened

4:10

already? What does the educational system look

4:13

like? What other supports pillars do you

4:15

need in order to make sure

4:17

that Gen A.I. can be used for

4:19

good and have a productive impact in

4:22

emerging economies versus fully developed economies? So

4:24

there are a lot of conversations happening

4:26

with that and... I think we've made

4:29

great strides in terms of providing access

4:31

to a lot of people, but how

4:33

as a world can we make

4:35

sure that no one is left behind?

4:38

So the basic needs are met in

4:40

order to have Gen AI be a

4:42

tool that can be productive in a

4:45

bunch of different settings. So what kind

4:47

of tasks can Gen AI help most

4:49

with? It really helps to understand

4:51

first what skills are being impacted. because

4:54

a job really is a collection of

4:56

skills and tasks that you perform. And

4:58

Gen A.I. is quite good at the

5:01

technical knowledge, having a bunch of information

5:03

gathered across really the entire web and

5:05

everywhere else it can access this knowledge.

5:08

So quite good at that. Not

5:10

so great at problem solving. And the

5:12

results were very mixed when looking at

5:14

all skills and the need for physical

5:17

execution, actually being physically present. Sometimes Gen

5:19

A I does really well because you're

5:21

coding, for example, you can do that

5:24

remotely, right? It doesn't require physical

5:26

presence. However, if you're taking blood, you're

5:28

a nurse, having an actual physical presence

5:30

there is really important. So there, Gen

5:33

A I doesn't do all that well.

5:35

So I think the really important thing

5:37

is... As you figure out what is

5:40

Gen A I good at and what

5:42

does that mean for me, I

5:44

always think it's not that Gen A

5:47

I will take your job, right? It's

5:49

the person that knows how to use

5:51

the tools that's probably going to take

5:54

your job. So get in there, go

5:56

figure out how to use these tools

5:58

to your best advantage. and see

6:00

how you can be a more productive

6:03

version of yourself. Spenya, we've been discussing

6:05

AI as helping us do our work

6:07

better. And what additional tools can it

6:09

bring to our work? But is there

6:11

a way that GenAI could actually create

6:14

new kinds of services and new kinds

6:16

of work? Absolutely. To me, Gen A.I.

6:18

is a game changer. Just like with

6:20

the computer, which was also a game

6:23

changer and fully introduced new jobs out

6:25

there. I don't think, at least with

6:27

current data, that Gen A.I. is going

6:29

to wipe out whole jobs. It will,

6:31

however, create new jobs, right? The prompt

6:34

engineer, for example, is a pretty new

6:36

job out there. Of course, some aspects

6:38

of jobs will become obsolete. That's normal.

6:40

That happens as part of any transition

6:42

in the labor market. But I think

6:45

you have to be a bit of

6:47

a dreamer, right? A bit of an

6:49

optimist to see. What are the cool

6:51

things that could actually happen with this?

6:54

And I think we're starting to see

6:56

some of these things happen in real

6:58

life already in farming this technology where

7:00

you have image detection of weeds in

7:02

a field that happens real time and

7:05

then a laser goes in and zaps

7:07

the weeds in the field as the

7:09

machine drives to the field that takes

7:11

a ton of AI. And it's just

7:13

amazing, right? And I think it will

7:16

become incredibly powerful when you start to

7:18

combine. the thought of self, if you

7:20

will, of gen AI with the actual

7:22

machine, the automation part of things, right?

7:25

If we can have robots be smart

7:27

thinkers and react to certain things with

7:29

the help of gen AI, I think

7:31

the possibilities will be amazing in terms

7:33

of what we can do. And I'm

7:36

pretty optimistic that we're onto something here.

7:38

We'll see some really cool applications, and

7:40

it's still incredibly early to see a

7:42

lot of that. Gen-A-I is supposed to

7:44

help us save time, be more productive,

7:47

but what could be the challenges to

7:49

this in the workplace? We talk about

7:51

Gen-A-I as being an incredible time-saver at

7:53

first and can start to help us

7:56

do anything really fast, and there is

7:58

a distinct learning. curve here. You have

8:00

to actually understand how to use this

8:02

tool. You have to make sure there

8:04

are no hallucinations in the answer, meaning

8:07

you're not getting made up things back

8:09

from the tool. And I think that's

8:11

really important to recognize. There is a

8:13

training curve, and you're going to have

8:16

to learn a whole lot of stuff,

8:18

how to interact with these, and how

8:20

to properly use them, before you can

8:22

actually start to save a whole bunch

8:24

of time. And that's normal. That's always

8:27

the case for new tools. So if

8:29

you were going to advise somebody who's

8:31

looking for new work opportunities in the

8:33

job market, what would you tell them

8:35

about Gen A.I? First and foremost, I

8:38

feel like people should always be passionate

8:40

about the job that they do, right?

8:42

So I know it's always my first

8:44

answer. Find something that you love to

8:47

do, because that's going to help you

8:49

stick with it, right? But then, given

8:51

the fact that currently Gen A is

8:53

not... whole slate replacing anything quite yet.

8:55

I think it's really important to choose

8:58

a job that you think you want

9:00

to do for which there's good demand

9:02

out there, right? And then learn the

9:04

tools that will actually help you be

9:06

successful in that job. So. If you're

9:09

an economist, I would strongly encourage you

9:11

to start to learn how to code

9:13

things and how to work with large

9:15

data sets. Maybe you want to learn

9:18

some large language models on how to

9:20

work with those in order to do

9:22

fairly detailed research on whatever topic you're

9:24

getting into. So I think all these

9:26

things are really important. Know the tools,

9:29

know the technology, and how you can

9:31

use it to actually get to your

9:33

goals faster. If you take a step

9:35

back for a moment and look really

9:38

big picture, if you look at where

9:40

we are in the US and many

9:42

other industrialized countries around the world, we're

9:44

facing a bit of a demographic cliff.

9:46

our labor force is going to start

9:49

shrinking because our populations are getting older.

9:51

And that means we're going to start

9:53

feeling the crunch in terms of workers

9:55

very soon. So workers are going to

9:57

be in demand. So you can think

10:00

about health care being a really large

10:02

sector that's going to continually demand new

10:04

workers. And then how can you use

10:06

these tools to be able to make

10:09

you even more productive in that setting?

10:11

I'm thinking about policy. policymakers who are

10:13

listening to our conversation right now and

10:15

listening to the changing work landscape, what

10:17

recommendations would you give to them regarding

10:20

Gen A.I. in the workplace? Policymakers have

10:22

a pretty tricky job. They have to

10:24

figure out What should be regulated? Can

10:26

it be regulated? Does it need to

10:28

actually be regulated? And especially for policymakers,

10:31

although I'll say a lot of companies

10:33

are thinking about this as well, of

10:35

course, the side effects of Gen A.

10:37

I have really important to consider, right?

10:40

There are certain biases that are inherent

10:42

in our data, and we train our

10:44

models on. So how do you make

10:46

sure that these biases aren't carried forward?

10:48

So there'll have ethical considerations to be

10:51

paid attention to the... technology is being

10:53

implemented and what it's impact will be.

10:55

What kind of government's support does there

10:57

need to be in order to have

10:59

successful upskilling, reskilling, to actually have workers

11:02

fully embrace this type of technology? So

11:04

I think there are a lot of

11:06

open questions. Svenio, what can businesses, government,

11:08

even different societies around the world, learn

11:11

from one another about how this technology

11:13

is being implemented and what its impact

11:15

will be? If you look at a

11:17

lot of industrialized countries, of course, the

11:19

skills are similar that I needed to

11:22

do different jobs. So there, the labor

11:24

market impact will be quite similar. But

11:26

the adoption rate can differ quite a

11:28

bit. So we actually just did a

11:31

study and looked at results for Japan

11:33

versus the US. And we found that

11:35

while in the US, there's a bunch

11:37

of anxiety around AI, right? A lot

11:39

of people are still iffy. What does

11:42

this actually mean? What does it mean

11:44

for me? What's going to change? In

11:46

Japan, survey respondents actually were much more

11:48

optimistic and much more open to figuring

11:50

out, okay, how might we adopt this?

11:53

Well, how can we use it? using

11:55

these tools as extensively quite yet. I

11:57

think the US is showing a lot

11:59

more adoption on these tools. So far.

12:02

So there are different speeds of adoption

12:04

that we're starting to notice and different

12:06

cultural bends in terms of, you know,

12:08

how open are you to incorporate this,

12:10

because, you know, change is hard. And

12:13

that's one, like, really interesting thing that's

12:15

starting to pop out in the data

12:17

and we're closely watching. Svenneh, thank you.

12:19

Thank you so much for having me.

12:21

It's a pleasure. Pete,

12:24

you recently collaborated with the World

12:26

Economic Forum for their report on

12:28

Gen A.I. for job augmentation and

12:30

productivity. You talked to some 20

12:32

organizations about the lessons that can

12:34

be learned from the early adopters

12:36

of Gen A.I. What are some

12:38

examples of how this tech is

12:40

being used by various organizations? Many

12:42

organizations have lots of policies and...

12:44

Historically, I think it's quite tiresome

12:46

with the way people interact with

12:49

those to understand how stuff gets

12:51

done. Some organisations have embraced Gen

12:53

A.I. based around those policies, actually

12:55

enabling employees to get more accurate

12:57

answers much quicker than before. And

12:59

I think that does a couple

13:01

of things that I think enhances

13:03

employees' enjoyment and work, and it

13:05

creates greater efficiencies. Another good example

13:07

would be number of organisations in

13:09

the whole recruitment space. In the

13:11

world, there is a fierce competition

13:13

for... those with skills and we

13:15

know there's a shortage of critical

13:17

skills in the world of work

13:19

generally. One of the metrics that

13:22

many organisations use is the time

13:24

to hire, how they find the

13:26

right person, right individual. the use

13:28

of Gen A.I. in that process

13:30

to be able to source more

13:32

accurately to find the right tons

13:34

of people in the right part

13:36

of the world as fast as

13:38

possible. And then as they bring

13:40

them through the process of recruitment,

13:42

Gen A.I. and its role in

13:44

that process has been, I think,

13:46

truly transformation in terms of shortening

13:48

that time to get the right

13:50

critical resources into the organization. So

13:52

what are businesses divulging to you

13:55

about where they're seeing the real

13:57

gains with this technology, Pete? I

13:59

think, no, one of the things

14:01

that is consistent with many organisations

14:03

where they've been either policing or

14:05

implementing is they're seeing that it

14:07

started to do things that used

14:09

to take weeks and months. in

14:11

a matter of minutes. And often

14:13

when you delve into that and

14:15

look at the kind of activity

14:17

that's been undertaken, it's the administrative

14:19

stuff, the repetitive things that people

14:21

we know from our surveys don't

14:23

enjoy doing, and it's removing some

14:25

of that and enabling, I think,

14:28

much crisper, much more accurate outputs.

14:30

But clearly, not without its risks.

14:32

There's the whole issue around the

14:34

ethics of it, some of the

14:36

inherent biases, and the fact that

14:38

it doesn't always give you the

14:40

right answer. I think that message

14:42

around the importance of humans in

14:44

conjunction with the technology we heard

14:46

that from justify every single organisation

14:48

we spoke to and that doesn't

14:50

go away. Are those the main

14:52

risks that companies are telling you

14:54

about, the hallucinations, spitting out wrong

14:56

answers? Like what do companies worry

14:58

about? They certainly worry about those

15:01

Lizzie, but I think... There's a

15:03

number of other things they think

15:05

about. Human beings fundamentally don't particularly

15:07

enjoy change. I think those organizations

15:09

that have seen the best returns

15:11

on the investments and the best

15:13

results are those where they've been

15:15

just really clear and embracing their

15:17

workforce. We always talk about people-centered

15:19

change that people tend to adopt

15:21

what they've helped to create. And

15:23

I think in this world of

15:25

the introduction of Gen A.I, it's

15:27

no different. an organization trying to

15:29

get by and from your workforce

15:31

and have them embrace this technology?

15:34

How do you do that? Gosh

15:36

we could do a whole podcast

15:38

on that very question. People tend

15:40

to respond less positively to I

15:42

think a top-down directive in most

15:44

cases. I think as human beings

15:46

we want to understand what are

15:48

the benefits of this? What does

15:50

it mean for me? How's my

15:52

work going to change? So I

15:54

think the whole focus around communications

15:56

and transparency is key. Secondly, it

15:58

will impact. some jobs. That's the

16:00

nature of technology and disruptive innovation.

16:02

And what we are seeing is

16:04

creating new jobs and new opportunities.

16:07

And I think an adage, again,

16:09

we use a lot, is that

16:11

you can protect people, but you

16:13

can't protect jobs. Jobs will continue

16:15

to evolve and they always will

16:17

do. So if you have AI

16:19

doing some of this sludge stuff,

16:21

drafting emails, what have you, how

16:23

do organizations figure out what to

16:25

do with their workers? if they

16:27

have new productivity games? That's a

16:29

really interesting question, Lucy, because I

16:31

think in the early days, probably

16:33

talking a year ago, those organisations

16:35

that were adopting at the time,

16:37

I think actually hadn't really thought

16:39

through how are they capturing that

16:42

capacity that's been for a lot

16:44

of feed-up and actually what are

16:46

they going to do with it?

16:48

What we see in some of

16:50

the organisations that are maybe more

16:52

mature in their deployment, where they're

16:54

moving from those pilots into much

16:56

more enterprise-wide deployments, is they've been

16:58

very deliberate around, A, how they're

17:00

capturing that capacity, that value, and

17:02

how they're then redeploying that and

17:04

to other... areas of their business

17:06

which need those skills and capabilities

17:08

in play. And I think for

17:10

me that's a really good example

17:12

of in some organisations where we're

17:15

seeing the skills-first, skills-based organization approach

17:17

around that. How do you agilely

17:19

move your skilled people to the

17:21

right place at the right time?

17:23

And as soon as you've got

17:25

Gen AI in the mix, it

17:27

for me opens up that skills-first

17:29

approach. when we're looking at the

17:31

kind of skills that are needed

17:33

in a workforce, leadership skills, communication

17:35

skills, how do we nurture those

17:37

kind of skills in a workforce?

17:39

And actually she's echoing what I've

17:41

seen. I think leaders in organizations

17:43

are always short of colleagues with

17:45

those skills. You listed them. Some

17:48

people call them soft skills. I

17:50

don't. I call them human skills.

17:52

How do organizations engender that? Well,

17:54

I think there's a variety of

17:56

approaches. I think one is having

17:58

a culture which has a growth

18:00

mindset, which empowers the workers to

18:02

develop themselves. It provides opportunities for

18:04

them to upskill and to reskill.

18:06

So we know workers want the

18:08

opportunity to develop and have opportunity

18:10

to learn new skills. On the

18:12

opposite side, when you ask the

18:14

workers the same question, but does

18:16

your employee give that opportunity? Only

18:18

40% of workers say they work

18:21

in an organization that they feel

18:23

they're getting full and free access

18:25

to skilling and development opportunity. When

18:27

we talk about a big societal

18:29

shift, right, there is a risk

18:31

of creating losers as well as

18:33

winners. And so when you think

18:35

about skills and the workforce, What

18:37

policy makers be thinking about to

18:39

sort of provide that support where

18:41

it's needed? I think the role

18:43

of policy makers in all this

18:45

is crucial. I think it's very

18:47

easy as well for us to

18:49

talk about Gen AIs if it's

18:51

mainstream. Well, we're fortunate and privileged

18:54

enough that we have access. We

18:56

have the software, the hardware, to

18:58

be able to access it. That's

19:00

not the case for every year

19:02

around the world. So creating that

19:04

equality of opportunity to be able

19:06

to be able to... work with

19:08

Gen AI to learn the skills

19:10

that are required. What do you

19:12

say to organizations that want to

19:14

integrate AI but haven't started yet?

19:16

Work out which elements of the

19:18

processes with your organization are those

19:20

that are pretty repeatable processes, things

19:22

that lends itself to the implementation

19:24

of Gen AI. I think secondly

19:27

being clear about what it is

19:29

you're expecting to see as the

19:31

outcome and measuring your progress throughout

19:33

that. I think thirdly, it's being

19:35

transparent and clear about the what

19:37

and the why with your workers

19:39

and your employee base, create that

19:41

narrative and engage them on that

19:43

journey. And I think all

19:45

organisations, the ones the

19:47

spoken to, where

19:49

they started where they

19:51

that way, that way,

19:53

been able to

19:55

actually scale much

19:57

faster because much

20:00

been learning all

20:02

the way through

20:04

in these smaller

20:06

pilots, all the able

20:08

to then scale

20:10

going forward. they're If

20:12

you could look back If you could

20:14

years from now, so we're in

20:16

2030 we're in what AI has done

20:18

for workforces around the world, what would

20:20

be your top positive changes, do

20:22

do you think? What a What a

20:25

question, I think the think the whole makeup

20:27

of the workforce will be different. as

20:29

historically it has been, but I

20:31

think we will see the emergence of

20:33

and probably the embedding of much

20:35

more what I call digital workers, working

20:37

very closely with human workers. of So

20:40

I think we will see the

20:42

embedding of digital workers in workforces across

20:44

most sectors. with human

20:46

workers. So I think

20:48

we will that was

20:50

completely fascinating to listen to

20:52

workers came away with

20:55

kind of two overriding

20:57

thoughts. Number one. workers need

20:59

to need to be brought on

21:01

board. There needs to be kind

21:03

of. ownership and and enjoyment of

21:06

these tools. two, from Svenia, that

21:08

that these are tools, that

21:10

not wholesale replacements for people,

21:12

but something that we're

21:14

just gonna learn how to

21:16

use. And also, it's

21:18

fast, And so get ready,

21:20

be ready. ready. Be ready. it's

21:22

happening right now. right

21:25

now. Well that is it

21:27

for today. Next time we're going to

21:29

be in Switzerland for the first of

21:31

two special episodes coming live from

21:33

Davos live we hear the latest developments

21:35

from the annual meeting of the World

21:37

Economic Forum. To get every

21:39

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tap, follow or subscribe in your tap,

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21:45

for listening. app. Until next

21:47

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