Industry report says 92% of ICT jobs will be transformed by AI

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About 91.5% of ICT specialist jobs, including around 10 million jobs in the EU, may be in jeopardy because of artificial intelligence (AI), according to a study conducted by big tech multinationals published on Wednesday (31 July).

The impact of technologies like AI on the job market is of high priority to policymakers.

In her political guidelines for the 2024-2029 mandate, reelected European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she would “significantly increase funding for a just transition across the next long-term budget” considering the upcoming challenges on the job market.

Some of the most tangible applications of new generative AI tools like ChatGPT are their ability to write code as well as search and summarise text, tasks that are crucial to ICT specialists.

The report consulted domain experts on how the principal skills required for 47 common ICT job roles will change as a result of AI.

They found that 34% of these roles will be highly affected by AI, meaning that more than 70% of the principal skills needed for those positions will change significantly, while 57.5% of roles will be moderately affected, meaning between 50% and 70% of the principal skills needed will change significantly.

The study was conducted by the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium, which was launched in April and catalysed by the EU-US Trade and Technology Council, a diplomatic forum where the two jurisdictions coordinate on trade and tech policy.

The Consortium is led by Cisco and includes Accenture, Eightfold, Google, IBM, Indeed, Intel, Microsoft, and SAP.

As AI tools improve, “certain skills will rise in importance (such as AI ethics, responsible AI, prompt engineering, AI literacy, Large Language Models [LLM] architecture and agile methodologies), while others may become less relevant (traditional data management, content creation, documentation maintenance, basic programming and languages, and research information)”, the report said.

The analysis estimates that AI will moderately transform all senior lever ICT jobs and that a substantial amount of mid-level and entry-level jobs will be highly transformed.

The report’s overview of AI transformation across career levels

Citing an IBM survey that found 87% of executives expect job roles to be augmented, rather than replaced, by genAI, they highlight the need for upskilling and reskilling initiatives among workers.

This comes on the back of the AI Office, the new Commission body charged with implementing the AI Act, releasing its current draft of the AI Pact – voluntary commitments that companies can follow to prepare to comply with the AI Act.

One of the core commitments of the AI Pact is to “promote awareness and AI literacy of staff and other persons dealing with the deployment of AI systems on their behalf”.

[Edited by Eliza Gkritsi/Zoran Radosavljevic}