Companies are looking to AI’s potential in solving efficiency issues and expanding their digital capacity—but that doesn’t necessarily mean the technology is coming for your job.
Survey says. A recent Deloitte survey of more than 600 US-based tech C-suite leaders found that 69% said GenAI is the primary reason they expect head count to increase. And 58% will or plan to establish a global capability center aimed squarely at that aspect of hiring.
Deloitte’s Anjali Shaikh, the firm’s CIO and chief data and analytics officer programs US leader, told IT Brew that “organizations are going to have to think about their talent strategies in order to meet the opportunities that GenAI clearly provides.”
“Tech executives anticipate an increase in head count growth because they’ll need more technology talent in order to meet their ambitions around GenAI,” Shaikh said.
GenAI is important, but the extent to which it’s a top priority varies in the executive suite. Less than half—but still a large amount, 45%—of tech leaders said that the technology is the “most urgently needed skill” for their organizations.
“We often hear so much about how AI is going to cut down the workforce and eliminate jobs, and yet there’s this insight that underscores how much orgs believe that tech can augment teams rather than replace them,” Shaikh said. “So I do see the growth in these skills being needed in organizations continuing, especially as GenAI and agentic become front and center.”
Bot work. Boston Consulting Group released its annual “AI at Work” report earlier this summer. The survey of more than 10,000 workers and team leaders from around the world found that AI adoption is continuing, leading to dismay on the part of some who fear job losses—41% of workers surveyed. But, as BCG Global Lead of People & Organization David Martin told IT Brew, companies investing in the technology are going to need to upskill staff and find outside staff to handle the changes.
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“It is very domain-specific,” Martin said. “There’s some sector differences, as well as if you look at certain types of roles within companies, you’re probably seeing more hiring in some places and some productivity savings and potential job loss in others.”
The job impact of AI adoption is something that Hexaware President and Global Head of Digital & Software Services Sanjay Salunkhe is keeping an eye on. He told IT Brew that he’s confident that the technology will “create new definitions in jobs” and make work more efficient. The software impact alone is expected to make a massive difference in how companies operate, Salunkhe said, and that’s “going to apply to every system in the world.”
“That means there is much more software yet to come,” Salunkhe said. “And all of that is going to create more jobs. To create all that software, you are going to need tools like AI to do it faster.”
Stepping forward. One of the most important things leadership can do, Martin said, is to articulate a vision for AI and communicate it effectively to employees. Making sure that their staff can see leadership taking a front seat in the technology’s adoption goes a long way, according to Martin, who specifically referred to programming as an example of what works.
“We see a lot of lead-by-example implications, like our leaders, managers or executives actually using the tools themselves,” Martin said. “In software engineering, we’ve seen that frontline coders, their effective adoption of engineering tools significantly depends on if their managers and the VPs leading the engineering team are using them themselves.”