Automation and AI Will Be Used to Boost Efficiency New Survey Shows

A recent report revealed that 45% of businesses have aimed to reduce staff and labor through new task automation processes since January 2022. Additionally, 85% of these businesses cited improving speed and quality of output as their primary goal.

The potential of AI tools continues to be explored, but their rapid advancement has made them increasingly mainstream, with terms like ChatGPT becoming household names. Simultaneously, the tech industry has seen a persistent trend of layoffs. Surveys such as this highlight the connection between these developments.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond’s report, published last month, surveyed hundreds of firms about their adoption of automation technology over the past few years and their plans for the next two. The findings revealed that while 45% of firms had already integrated automation to reduce their workforce, 46% planned to do the same in the next two years.

However, workforce reduction was only the fourth most common reason for adopting AI over the next 24 months. The top three reasons included enhancing business processes (75%), increasing employee output (57%), and improving the quality of employee output (57%). Only 19% of firms planned to use AI to handle tasks associated with hard-to-fill positions.

Not all companies have embraced AI yet. Slightly fewer than half had begun automating tasks in the past two years, while just over half had not. The manufacturing sector, long a proponent of traditional automation, was more likely to adopt new automation technologies compared to the service sector (53% versus 43%).

The report indicated that if companies achieve their goals, there will likely be increased production across various sectors, coupled with continued job losses as nearly half of the companies replace human workers with AI.

In addition to AI, companies have used other strategies to downsize. Another survey found that a quarter of CEOs and executives hoped employees would leave following anti-remote-work policies and return-to-office mandates.

The AI hype might eventually wane if the technology fails to prove its capability to replace entire roles across different positions. Until then, the tech job market may continue to struggle. For those navigating this challenging market, resources are available, such as lists of fully remote positions at remote-friendly companies like Microsoft and Nvidia and guides to prepare for job interviews with common questions and crucial queries to ask during interviews. Despite the market’s difficulties, there are still areas where AI has yet to make significant inroads.

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