Will Robots Take Your Job? Check What's in Store for You!

Over the next few years, artificial intelligence and robots could lead to the elimination of as many as 30 percent of traditional jobs. Digital workers will certainly not replace traditional specialists, but their use on a wider scale will enable companies to gain an advantage over the competition and improve productivity, quality, and financial efficiency. For now – according to a study by Accenture – only 34 percent of companies are ready to "hire" digital workers, even though half of global enterprises and organizations are already planning digital transformation.

– The arrival of the era of the digital worker means big changes. The digital worker will replace humans in performing routine, repetitive tasks. This will allow people to focus on tasks related to evaluation and drawing conclusions. Some traditional jobs will disappear, and some will evolve. New ones will also emerge, related to managing the digital worker and its implementation – forecasts Dominik Wójcik, senior manager in the business transformation consulting department at Accenture, in an interview with the Newseria Biznes news agency.

Data processing

Digital workers will prove useful wherever large amounts of data need to be processed and analyzed. The financial sector is one example. Technology will handle the gigantic daily volume of transactions better, thanks to which people will be able to focus on tasks that require risk assessment and decision-making. Experts note that entirely new professions will also emerge and fields such as data scientist, scenario planner, or market maker will develop. The labor market will force employees to acquire new technology-related competencies, but interpersonal skills and creativity will also be in demand.

Gartner Institute forecasts that next year 3 million employees worldwide will be supported by robots. Meanwhile, by 2025, one third of the traditional workforce will be replaced by digital workers.

Artificial intelligence, minibots, and automation are already finding increasingly broad applications in business.

– The position of digital workers will become increasingly strong. Organizations that implement such solutions quickly and efficiently will be able to gain a competitive advantage and become leaders in their areas – says Dominik Wójcik.

The digitization of the workforce will be one of the biggest challenges for business in the coming years. However, companies that implement innovative solutions early enough will strengthen their advantage over the competition and set trends in their industries. For some of them, technology may even prove necessary to maintain operational efficiency and preserve their market position.

– Our research, conducted among market leaders and global corporations, shows that nearly half of them have elements related to digital transformation in their current business strategy. However, only about 30 percent stated that they are ready to implement and use digital workers – says Dominik Wójcik.

The digital revolution is coming to your company too

According to Accenture research, the digital revolution in an enterprise will translate into productivity growth of up to 80 percent. It will also significantly increase cost efficiency, employee engagement, and workplace safety.

– Among the benefits, one can also mention quality improvement, that is, reducing the number of errors, and standardization, that is, the way given processes are carried out in the organization. All these elements can greatly improve a company's economic condition – says Dominik Wójcik.

Hybrid workforce models, that is, combining human work with digital workers, are planned to be introduced by the leaders of global corporations. The Institute for Robotic Process Automation calculated that the use of software robots is equivalent to 1/5 of the cost of a full-time employee.

– However, this does not mean that human work will be completely eliminated. Implementing a digital worker will affect jobs, change the organization, and change the way people work. Skills such as entrepreneurship, creativity, and social competencies will be important. Employees will have to continuously educate themselves in the area of new technologies and digitization in order to efficiently manage intelligent solutions – forecasts Dominik Wójcik.

Solutions such as Machine Learning (analysis of large data sets for self-learning), Robotic Process Automation, that is, full process automation using software robots, Expert System and Analytics (decision-making based on analytics), and Computer Vision, that is, automatic processing of images and video for cognitive analytics, are finding increasingly broad applications in business. As experts note, today's artificial intelligence systems are increasingly advanced, enabling prediction and drawing conclusions in real time in order to make accurate decisions.