During OCADO’s latest revenue calls, CEO Tim Steiner said the group’s advances in artificial intelligence and robotics will allow them to fill online grocery stores at a faster pace.
In 2012, it took 25 minutes of human labor to choose a 50-item order. That’s currently up to 10. However, technological advances at OCADO mean that 500 workers will need the workers this year after already announced that 2,300 jobs will be at risk in 2023.
The British company’s long-standing movement to phase out human labor trajectory over time exemplifies workers’ fears of generative AI. It may increase productivity, efficiency and profitability, but it can also replace staff.
While some companies have not yet embraced the shift, many have spent more than a year experimenting with workplace pilots.
“Companies say, ‘What is our AI strategy?'” Karin Kimbrough, Chief Economist at LinkedIn, experiments. “It’s beginning to change the landscape of work.”
Now, employees, superiors and policymakers are trying to decipher exactly what the benefits of generative AI look like.
“This latest generation of AI can change any job, and I don’t think that’s been overstated,” says Peter Cheese, CEO of the UK Human Resources Development Association, who is a specialized body for HR and People Development in the UK. “Of course, we can see examples of different forms of AI already making a difference in the workforce, but it’s still too early for many companies.”
Many employers cut jobs under the guise of economic and political uncertainty. But from technology company IBM to language learning app Duolingo, famous examples of AI-driven layoffs in recent months have spurred questions about whether white-collar roles slashes and burns are ongoing.
Dario Amodei, a 42-year-old billionaire who runs AI developer humanity, warns that the technology he and Openai are building could wipe out half of the entry-level office work in the next five years. According to venture capital firm Signalfire, alumni already account for 7% of the 15 largest tech companies, with the number of new recruits down by a quarter compared to 2023.
“AI is beginning to get better than humans on almost every intellectual task. We as a society are working on that,” Amodei told television network CNN last month. “AI will make things better for what other CEOs do, what I do, and what everyone is doing.”
Scholars, recruiters and management consultants are divided on whether Bloodbath’s story is merely a Scarmonger or a clear view of the possibility of shaking the labour market. But even if AI isn’t destroying large jobs today, it’s certainly redesigning them and changing the equations of work, power, and personnel.
“There is no sector (for AI impact),” said Peter Brown, PWC’s global workforce expert. “But it mainly changes the role that doesn’t exclude them, allowing humans to focus on more valuable elements of their work.”
For now, Mike Clancy, general secretary of the prospective labor union, representing 160,000 members of the UK’s public and private sector, has agreed greatly. He said it is important to distinguish between industries.
“For years, when you’re running air transport, distribution networks, infrastructure or manufacturing processes, you’ve shifted talent to new technologies. AI can help, but the human side must be retained for the resilience of the system.”
In contrast, Clancy said that “email jobs” (people who rely on text responses from lawyers to customer service agents) would undergo “magnificent short-term changes” even if there was “long lead times to realize the benefits.”
Since the launch of CHATGPT in late 2022, workplace experts have been trying to see if companies choose to amplify their capabilities by trying to do more work with AI or maintain the same output while reducing employment.
Schroeder is an example of the former. “We don’t see any short-term revolutions and large-scale role displacements, but we expect these trends to drive evolution over the next five to ten years of restructuring the workforce.” Using AI to perform analysis of company data, reporting, and providing support in queries are examples of applications that could be “transformative.” Having a more “AI literacy” workforce will make staff more productive, give them an edge, and help them provide more valuable jobs, Barnett added.
The recent move from Biotechnology Company Moderna combining HR and technology capabilities – opening the door to more automation – is another indication that businesses are beginning to think about workplace planning.
IBM is moving further, taking on the job of hundreds of HR staff using AI agents. Swedish fintech Klarna said that AI assistants now manage two-thirds of customer service queries, significantly reducing the volume dramatically reduced by humans (the CEO later admitted that the quality of such severe cost reductions had declined). At Google and Meta, AI is restructuring engineering, recruitment and marketing, helping to restructure and reduce staffing.
Other companies are “on the start of the journey,” said James Milligan, global technology director at Recruiter Hayes. “Many traditional sectors outside of high-tech — the large private sector, the FTSE 250, the Fortune 500 — are still working on some of the fundamentals of excellent governance and data protection policies in the world of generating AI.”
AI is already shifting the skills workers need. Those who are proficient in new tools or have experience deploying them in the workplace are promoted, paid more, and are actively recruited. LinkedIn data shows an increase in role adoption, including rapid engineers, AI heads, and responsible AI usage architects.
A new PWC report, which analyzed about 1 billion job ads across six continents, found that AI-skilled workers were paid 56% more in 2024 than those without technical knowledge.
They also found that industries considered “most exposed” to AI experience three times more growth per employee revenue than what is considered “less exposed.” For optimists, this is evidence that AI makes individual workers more valuable. “Contrary to the fear of unemployment, the number of jobs and wages are growing in almost every AI-exposed occupation, including the most automated jobs,” the PWC report states.
However, there are major questions as to how long this will last. PWC said jobs exposed to AI are increasing (at a 38% rate) than jobs that are less exposed (65%). The number of roles such as financial analysts, legal associates, and market researchers is slower than before.
There is also the risk that workers will be left behind. According to the PWC, the combination of capabilities that employers are looking for is changing 66% faster in occupations that are most exposed to AI, such as financial analysts, than in the least exposed people, such as physical therapists. This acceleration makes it difficult for medium-term career workers who may not be AI natives or for medium-term workers who do not work for large corporations to meet new skills demands. In all countries analyzed, women had a higher percentage of jobs exposed to AI than men.
According to Kimbrough of LinkedIn, workers whose responsibility was absorbed by the new technology were “rotating towards skills that could not have skill generation AI.” These individuals were “confusing” rather than “evacuation,” she added. This means that they prioritize human-centered skills.
Claudia Harris, CEO of Makers, a technology talent and training platform, said there is a “two-speed economy emerging” between companies that invest in AI and those that don’t.
“The division line is not traditional. It’s not about innovative industries. It’s about companies and cultures that can make this huge and decisive change.”
