A new global survey of 252 senior executives within dedicated IT and AI functions enterprises by Verdantix, an independent research and advisory firm, has revealed more than half (53%) of businesses expect 10% of job roles to be replaced by AI agents in the next five years. And even more (62%) expect significant benefits from AI projects in the next three years to come from cost savings through elimination of management roles, more so than through savings from the elimination of frontline worker roles.
Sales, marketing and customer service will see more AI-related projects than any other professions this year (28%), suggesting a higher level of comfort with AI adoption, though indicating jobs in these departments could be most at risk as AI integration matures.
Despite job replacement predictions in the medium term, in the immediate term, AIs are collaborating with rather than entirely replacing their human colleagues. Far more organisations have already deployed ‘AI in the human loop’ such as chat, research and creative writing (72%) than domain-specific autonomous AI agents (37%). Similarly, adoption of human/AI co-pilots is expected to grow, particularly across transport with 67% expecting human/AI co-pilots in maritime, railways, subways and trams and aerospace & defence by 2025.
Crucially, though corporate investment in AI is accelerating, with 53% of firms expecting budgets for AI projects to grow by 10-24% in the next year alone, respondents’ answers show caution about relying on tech autonomously. Very few respondents (11%) think we will create computers with the same intelligence as humans, even by 2030.
