A slew of new reports dropped in the last week indicate that adoption of AI-based technologies in the workplace is not just still on-trend in the year where ChatGPT became a household name, it is accelerating.
Studies released in September show that an increasing majority of those in senior and/or leadership roles in the workplace believe AI- and automation-based solutions will assist and enhance the productivity of existing workers, rather than merely replace them. It’s a far cry from even just one year ago when professionals in many industries – including finance and credit functions – still labeled the widespread use of AI as a sort of job-killer.
In fact, a brand new Gartner study (“Multidimensional CRM: How GenAI Will Revolutionize Sales Force Automation Platforms“) predicted this week that as much as 60% of B2B sales operations will rely to some level on Generative AI to streamline processes like data capture, review, and extraction within five years. The result, simply, is professionals “saving hours” of time. It’s currently occurring with 5% of such activities, according to Gartner.
“This shift will see sales technology moving from being just a tool to truly becoming a teammate,” said Adnan Zijadic, director analysts in the Gartner Sales Practice.
Gartner had previously underscored the deep importance of generative AI on the credit side of finance operations in part because of an ongoing lack of new talent entering that industry. In
In short, young talent is not looking to go into “back office” pursuit at present.
Meanwhile, a huge takeaway from Indeed’s new “AI at Work” study is, yet again, that generative AI is much more unlikely to replace entire jobs than it is “to serve as a tool to augment or streamline parts of a job.”
“Going forward, we’ll see a variety of jobs reworked and reimagined by employers, including new jobs being created over time because of GenAI’s fast-growing influence,” said Svenja Gundell, Indeed’s Chief Economist.
That reworking of jobs mentioned by Gundell isn’t just a “forward”-looking proposition in many circles, however – It’s already here.
This week MarketWatch released a video expose on the sudden rise of AI freelancers. Therein, MarketWatch found companies are already committing large amounts of money and resources on gig-workers with an expertise in AI solutions. It has become one of the trendiest, in-demand roles in the workforce.
MarketWatch and some hiring companies did acknowledge that challenges exist in identifying true AI experts and understanding the qualifications required for such roles, underscoring the importance of solutions providers – whether companies or individuals – that have built up credibility and credentials in the AI space over time.
All of this dovetails with Emagia’s anecdotal findings from talking to dozens of senior-level B2B credit professionals at September’s 2023 Gateway Conference hosted by NACM Connect in St. Louis. Most said they welcome Generative AI solutions, like Emagia’s new GiaGPT solution, and don’t worry about jobs being reduced because most credit departments do not have optimal staffing for everyone to finish all necessary tasks within a 40-hour work week to begin with. As a result, “assistants” or “copilots” powered by technology are more welcomed by credit professionals now than ever before… at least according to the group gathered in St. Louis.
So much for that outdated notion of AI being a “job-killer.”
