Many American companies are about to flip the “on” switch when it comes to automating tasks with artificial intelligence.
According to one CFO survey by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond and Atlanta, plans to use AI in the coming year are ramping up.
To be sure, companies have been automating work for generations, and the survey says 60% of companies plan in the next 12 months to use software, devices and/or other technologies to automate standardize the tasks performed by employees. That’s little change from the 59% who said their company had automated tasks in the previous 12 months.
But when asked specifically about the use of AI, the responses pointed to an important tipping point. Among businesses expected to automate in the next 12 months, about 54% said they will use AI tools to automate tasks performed by employees while 27% said they will not doing so.
This percentage is almost the opposite when compared to 37% who have used AI for automation in the previous 12 months and 60% who have not.
“CFOs say their companies are harnessing AI to automate a range of tasks, from payments to suppliers,” said John Graham, a Duke finance professor and academic director of the survey. provisioning, invoicing, procurement, financial reporting and optimization of facility utilization”. “This is a top feature for companies using ChatGPT to generate creative ideas and draft job descriptions, contracts, marketing plans and press releases.”
Large companies are leading the race into AI, with 76% saying they will use it for automation in the next year. This is up from 55% AI usage in the previous year.
However, small companies are also participating, with 44% saying they will use AI to automate tasks in the next 12 months compared to 32% who will not, and up from 29% who did in the past 12 months. last month.
The survey doesn’t necessarily suggest that companies will completely replace humans with AI, since employees perform many tasks for their jobs.
But it suggests that AI skills will be increasingly important in the workplace, perhaps sooner than people realise.
LinkedIn Co-Founder Reid Hoffman told CNN that within three to five years, humans will likely have a “secondary agent” helping them carry out missions.
“It’s a job transition. Human jobs will be replaced but will be replaced by other humans using AI,” he added. “The whole idea is to be a human using AI, learn it, implement it and make it happen.”
But in the long run, AI’s impact on the labor market could be more significant.
Earlier this year, venture capitalist Kai-Fu Lee reaffirmed his prediction since 2017, when he said AI would replace 50% of human jobs in the next decade.
At the Fortune Innovation forum in Hong Kong in March, Luck editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell ask him if the timeline is still correct.
“It’s actually eerily accurate,” he replied. People criticized me for being too aggressive in 2017, 2018, 2019 and I was a bit worried at the time. But when the AI generation comes, I think everyone is on board and believes it’s the right pace.”
