WEF: Forecasts for Enterprise Automation Fall Short

Businesses worldwide are adopting automation in their operations at a slower pace than previously expected. That is the conclusion of experts at the World Economic Forum (WEF).

According to the the report “Future of Jobs”, businesses currently estimate that 34% of all their tasks are performed by machines. The previous forecast of automation at 47% by 2025 will not materialise, economists conceded.

Now experts believe that by 2027 42% of tasks will be automated.

“The boundary between human and machine has shifted,” said the WEF.

According to revised estimates, 65% of automated tasks in the next five years will focus on information processing and data handling. 35% of work will involve reasoning and decision-making, which traditionally are the prerogative of humans.

Approximately three-quarters of surveyed companies plan to deploy AI by 2027. Experts say that if firms move ahead with these efforts, the labour market will be radically changed.

Half of organisations expect job creation amid AI adoption. However, 25% of respondents are confident that a number of professions will disappear under the influence of algorithms.

“It is not yet clear how rapidly evolving technologies such as generative AI will alter the makeup of automated tasks in the period 2023–2027,” the report says.

Experts also cited studies showing that large language models can already automate 15%. They predicted this figure would rise to 50% in the near future.

LinkedIn’s head of global public policy, Suzanne Duke, said that over the past 12 months there has been a surge in job postings requiring generative AI skills.

“During this period, the number of jobs mentioning GPT grew by more than 50%,” she said.

The WEF’s managing director Saadia Zahidi said that advances in digital technologies, the shift to renewable energy and changing supply chains will lead to a 23% reduction in jobs. She added that just over half of them are in disappearing occupations.

Zahidi added that in general the picture “seems manageable if focus is on retraining and upskilling workers.” Yet the changes will not be felt evenly across the world.

“Many countries competing on the basis of cheap labour will not be able to do so in this new economy. They will have to think very differently about how they invest in creating the right kind of work, education, and upskilling of the adult population,” said the head of the WEF.

In March, experts warned that generative AI threatens about 300 million jobs in developed countries.