AI is Impacting the Future of Work

This week I had the pleasure of sharing a summary of AI’s impact on the workforce at NoBa Capital’s event.

Lucky for you, you’re going to get a peek at what I presented. Sit back, relax, and allow me to summarize the current impact of AI so you don’t have to slog through the madness.

I’m going to cover:

• Adoption

• Skills exposure & impact

• Jobs & hiring

• Total compensation

Adoption is all over the place.

The future may still be… in the future. ChatGPT is just the tip of the iceberg. The market is growing rapidly with LLMs and developer tools readily available.

Not everybody is adopting at the same rate.

• Only 5% of American firms of all sizes said they used AI in February 2024. Only an additional 7% said they planned to use it within he next 6 months. (The Economist)

• Culturally, people still view adopting tools with GenAI as cheating

• Major precedent-setting lawsuits, like New York Times vs. OpenAI, could totally halt or reverse the adoption curve

• Not all industries are built equally. Unsurprisingly, a whole 42% of enterprise IT professionals report active AI deployment (IBM)

• Countries are exploring and deploying at different rates - 👀 OK India and Emirates, we see you. (below)

Skills Exposure & Impact

The robot overlords aren’t going to take over just yet.

Not all skills have the same level of risk of replacement. Most of what we’re seeing in the Generative AI space mainly sits in the Augmentation category.

• Automation = Human Replacement

• Augmentation = Productivity Gains

• Low Exposure = Human Required

Reskilling and upskilling continue to be a priority.

Those who can translate business needs into prompts and specs will be the most valuable in the short-to-mid-term future.

Jobs & Hiring

We’re already seeing AI advance the prevalence of “vaporhiring” - a fabrication of either fake jobs or fake applications.

• In January, Forrester predicted that we would see an increase in hiring mischief thanks to mass AI adoption

• Indeed has seen the highest number of fake job postings with 32% of their listings being fraudulent, LinkedIn was reported at around 7%

• Last week, researchers submitted 83,000 fake job applications as a DEI sting operation to see if the U.S.’s biggest companies were discriminating

• 85% of candidates doubt that a human being even reviewed their application when they don’t hear back from an employer

Total Compensation

The way that we’re currently pricing work is broken. Most freelancers and employees operate on a “time and materials” model. I will work x hours for $y.

The challenge? There is no incentive to work faster or find efficiencies and productivity gains. With AI being a massive productivity booster, we will be getting paid less to do more.

The “taskification” of work shifts us to a more outcome-based pricing model.

Expect more diversity in pricing:

• Project and milestone

• Value-based

• Retainer

• Success

In case you missed it, I wrote a full pricing guide here.

I’ll continue to stay on top of AI trends and impacts. If you want me to speak about this topic at one of your events, drop me an email.