The workforce transformation underscores the necessity for skill development and training to deploy the transformative technology in everyday tasks
Generative AI (GenAI) is a game-changer that is rapidly disrupting businesses and industries by automating numerous routine tasks. This transformation results in a major shift in how we work and the skills needed for the future. Organisations should view GenAI as a technology that augments human capabilities for better efficiency and accuracy, and not as a replacement for workforce, especially keeping in mind the challenges associated with GenAI, such as context understanding, bias, and ethics, which need to be continuously addressed.
As a result of the rapid emergence of GenAI, with new open source projects and models being introduced frequently, empowering the workforce is key to effectively leveraging GenAI. With workforce transformation, everyone will learn to use various tools and LLMs specific to different sectors, automating routine tasks. It will help teams execute complex projects with enhanced efficiency and precision.
GenAI and the automation of routine work
The emergence of GenAI technology, and its ability to generate multi-modal content (text, images, videos, data analysis, etc) has revolutionised the way routine tasks are handled across industries. Tasks that once required hours of human effort can now be (completely) automated, running from analysing volumes of data in spreadsheets with complex relationships to drafting legal policies and contracts. This successful automation poses new requirements for employees to embrace this technology and effectively employ it for their day to day activities.
Embracing technology for enhanced efficiency
The key to leveraging GenAI lies in clear understanding of its capabilities and successfully embracing it for enhanced efficiency and accuracy, rather than viewing it as a threat to job security! Employees should be encouraged to explore and experiment with this technology to be integrated into their daily tasks to improve productivity. For example, employees can use it to draft content (contracts, news, policies, etc.) or data compilation based on historical data, which saves considerable time and thus allows employees to focus on more complex, creative tasks that AI cannot replicate.
Upskilling strategy: Adapting to the GenAI-driven workplace
While the adoption of AI ensures automation of some tasks, there is also the great possibility of new roles and skills to be created. This necessitates upskilling and reskilling. Employees must be equipped not only with the knowledge to work alongside AI but also an understanding of its risks and limitations. A proactive approach to skill development and education is vital to prepare the workforce for future opportunities.
The demand for new skills to design, implement, and deploy GenAI technologies on the one hand, and interact with them on the other, is exponentially growing. Upskilling of employees becomes essential. This can be looked at from two perspectives:
Foundational GenAI usage upskilling for (all) employees to understand the capabilities and limitations of GenAI, ensuring they can effectively interact with it and explore more options for improved work processes as well as being able to validate the produced output (given it did not reach 100% accuracy). This is particularly important for jobs most impacted by GenAI's development, such as content creators, graphics designers, and market researchers. The key skills for this programme should cover the foundation of GenAI, GenAI models, and prompt engineering.
Advanced GenAI implementation upskilling for a (smaller) group of technical employees to be able to creatively design, fine-tune, implement, and integrate GenAI systems. They should also have advanced knowledge of data governance, analytics, management, quality, and responsible AI.. New roles are expected to emerge, such as (GenAI model trainer, GenAI integration specialist, GenAI product manager, and GenAI compliance officer.. These new roles will be critical to drive transformation for their respective organisations, and will be on high demand. The key skills to be considered here are advanced data literacy, GenAI API integration, GenAI assistant development, and GPT development.
These two groups of skills are becoming increasingly valuable for organisations to transform and embark into this disruptive technology.
The upskilling strategy should focus on bringing the workforce up to speed to be able to harness this technology, and should consider the following areas:
Tailored learning paths: Develop tailored learning paths that cater to the specific roles and responsibilities of the workforce.
Experimentation: Facilitate hands-on projects and simulations that allow employees to apply their GenAI knowledge in real-world scenarios. This could involve creating GenAI models (such as customised GPTs in the OpenAI realm) to solve business problems, automate processes, or create new products and services.
Understanding GenAI limitations: While GenAI is a disruptive technology, it comes with specific risks and limitations that the workforce should have full understanding of, such as (data bias, copyrights and intellectual property, hallucination, quality of generated output, and compliance with regulations). Of special importance is the vulnerability of data to cyber-attacks, including data poisoning (altering the training data to compromise the model) or model inversion attacks (extracting sensitive information from the model).
Ethics and governance: training on ethical considerations, bias mitigation, and responsible use of GenAI to ensure employees understand the importance of ethical AI development and deployment as well as data privacy, security, and compliance requirements.
Cross-functional teams: Encourage collaboration across different departments and roles through cross-functional projects where business and technical teams co-design GPTs that solve complex business problems
The Saudi Vision 2030 has placed a great emphasis on digital literacy and adoption of emerging technologies, including AI, which will enable the Saudi workforce to embrace Generative AI at work. For example, SDAIA Academy and QODORATECH initiatives place a great emphasis on AI upskilling which will accelerate the adoption of this technology into the work environment.
Repurposing the workforce
There is a growing fear within many organisations that some workforce will be replaced by AI technology. This will primarily impact the jobs that are (fully) routine in nature, and where GenAI can fully automate the workflow. In such cases, these employees should be looked at as assets developed with the organisations, and hence, can successfully be repurposed to assume new roles! This involves analysing their capabilities and skill sets, identifying new areas within the organisation where these employees can provide value, and training them for these new roles. For example, employees in the customer service role can be repurposed into a business analysis role based on their extensive knowledge in the services offered by the organisation. The focus should be on leveraging their expertise in areas where human judgement and interaction are irreplaceable.
Human-AI workforce
The future of a successful workforce is a blend of human and AI capabilities, where humans creatively employ GenAI technology to augment human capabilities. It's not just about automating routine tasks but enhancing human roles with GenAI capabilities. For example, in a law firm, GenAI can conduct initial case research, but lawyers then use their expertise to interpret this information and strategize. Similarly, in financial services, GenAI can handle data analysis, while financial advisors focus on client interaction and maintaining the human interaction and personalised advice.
Continuous learning and adaptation
In a complex ecosystem continually reshaped by AI, learning and adaptation to harness the full potential of technology are critical enablers and should be viewed as ongoing processes. Organisations should foster a culture of continuous learning, encouraging employees to stay up-to-date on GenAI advancements. We strongly believe that this should be accomplished through various formats of upskilling programs including regular training courses, workshops, hackathons, TechBytes, and others.
In April 2023, PwC announced that it will invest $1 billion over three years to expand and scale AI capabilities. This includes upskilling people on AI tools and capabilities in order to work faster and smarter, help grow careers, and advise clients on the benefits of AI as well as other transformative technology.
A well considered approach
The rise of Generative AI should be viewed as an opportunity for evolution rather than a threat to the workforce. By embracing GenAI for routine tasks, upskilling to interact effectively with these new technologies, and repurposing roles where necessary, businesses can leapfrog into the future and reinvent (partially or fully) their operating model with a dynamic, efficient, and future-ready workforce. This approach not only prepares employees for the future of work but also ensures that organisations remain competitive and innovative in an AI-driven world. Today, the advancement of GenAI will allow enterprises to run advanced industry-specific use cases, with the right level of accuracy in a cost-effective manner. Organisation leaders need to invest in core capabilities to implement an adaptive, agile and experimental growth strategy.
