Among the conversations taking place at the Gartner Symposium in Barcelona this week is one about talent and how it will be impacted by artificial intelligence (AI).
WITH ongoing skills crisis, AI is positioned as a way to fill the skills gap needed by IT leaders.
But IT leaders must recognize that their employees may be concerned that AI will take away tasks they do in their daily jobs, leading to job losses. People may be afraid to use this technology if it will benefit them. the role is redundant. Gartner recommends that CIOs talk to their teams to work with them to determine how their work will be augmented by AI and how their work will evolve.
This conversation was recounted by Kirke Saar, CIO of Nordic Investment Bank, when she discussed I train and play with AI'm at work during Benchmark and communicate your AI progress panel discussion, saying, “We need time and money to train our people.”
She encouraged delegates to find ways to give their employees the opportunity to play with artificial intelligence tools on a daily basis. However, Saar acknowledged that business benefits can be difficult to measure, which can lead to difficult conversations with the head of finance who may be looking at return on investment (ROI).
Gartner urges CIOs to prepare their IT teams for artificial intelligence. By 2030, CIOs expect that no IT work will be performed by humans without the use of AI. A survey of 700 CIOs conducted by Gartner found that three-quarters of the work of IT teams will be augmented by AI, and a quarter of the work will be performed solely by AI. The analytics firm said the survey results show that organizations must balance AI readiness with human readiness to support the value of AI.
When Gabriela Vogel, VP Analyst at Gartner, was asked why IT professionals are willing to share their knowledge with AI, especially if they fear their jobs could be replaced, she responded, “It depends on where AI is being applied and whether and to what extent you are willing to be a part of it.”
She noted that technology is a democratizing force and it is changing. For example, as Vogel noted during the conversation about the survey results, there will be programmatic roles that will no longer exist. What this means for programming, Vogel says, is that people will no longer want to learn to be programmers. “You can’t train people because they won’t want to learn,” she warned.
While the current conversation is focused on the ROI of AI, Vogel noted that beyond the need to make money for the organization, “employee returns” do matter, especially when there is demand for skills. “You need a talent strategy. You need a development strategy, and you need to focus on your employee value proposition,” she said.
While AI may lead to layoffs, she said CIOs need to recognize that the job market is becoming increasingly competitive. She said CIOs understand that responsibility for skills is becoming an important part of their role.
This means CIOs need to pay much more attention to human capital management. Rob O'Donoghue, vice president analyst at Gartner, said: “CIOs need to motivate their employees because there is a big fear that AI will take over.”
He suggested they collaborate with their IT teams to see how co-creation would work in their current jobs and then determine what their new role would look like.
