75% of business leaders say AI will create new roles for employees | Innovation

Dystopian fears of artificial intelligence (AI) taking jobs don’t match the benefits that workers and enterprises will gain from adopting the technology, according to a Thursday report from Tata Communications.

Of the 120 global business leaders surveyed in the report, 75% said they expect AI to create new roles for their employees.

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The vast majority (93%) of business leaders also agreed that AI can enhance employee engagement, the report found. AI has the potential to help leaders better assess each employee’s skills and innovation priorities, and suggest activities that can spark creative thinking throughout the organization–democratizing the creative process and getting all workers more involved, the report noted.

SEE: IT leader’s guide to the future of artificial intelligence (Tech Pro Research)

“The prevalent narrative around AI has focussed on a ‘Singularity’–a hypothetical time when artificial intelligence will surpass humans,” Ken Goldberg, a UC Berkeley professor and co-author of the report, said in a press release. “But there is a growing interest in ‘Multiplicity’, where AI helps groups of machines and humans collaborate to innovate and solve problems. This survey of leading executives reveals that Multiplicity, the positive and inclusive vision of AI, is gaining traction.”

AI can also help foster collaboration among businesses that are becoming increasingly multicultural, the report found: 80% of leaders surveyed said these technologies could facilitate team composition, organization, and communication, particularly for global teams.

While organizations increasingly understand how diversity leads to positive outcomes in terms of the bottom line, 90% of leaders agreed that diversity of thought is important for management as well, according to the report.

The big takeaways for tech leaders:

• 75% of global business leaders said they expect AI to create new roles for their employees. — Tata Communications, 2018
• 80% of business leaders said AI could facilitate team composition, organization, and communication. — Tata Communications, 2018

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