Ten challenges AI brings to the workplace

15. The “man + machine” model in the next 25 years will be based on such a paradigm: machines will continue to improve efficiency, while people will focus on inefficient things – breakthrough innovations are often inefficient. Productivity is for robots, not for humans. Any work with productivity indicators should not be done by humans, especially in the future. In organizations, we need to learn to work with intelligent digital colleagues who will assist us in completing many tasks, which requires us to establish a new “man + machine” code of conduct in the workplace.
16. 25 years later, there will still be many non-standard blue-collar jobs with certain technical content and service that need to be completed by people, and their wages may be higher, especially in developed countries. The robot aftermarket, that is, the robot parts market or after-sales and maintenance market, may also be a huge growth market in the future, creating many employment opportunities.
17. The work of CEOs and senior executives will not change much; the work of grassroots employees will not change much either, except that their work speed and efficiency will be further improved. The most important organizational changes will occur in the middle level, and middle-level managers will be the most affected. The reason is simple. If the main function of middle-level managers is management, that is, passing on information, statistics and sorting out grassroots work, then AI can perfectly replace them.
18. As far as organizations are concerned, the organizational structure will become increasingly flat, and the space for middle-level managers will be greatly compressed. Reporting, budgeting, and assessment work may all be undertaken by AI.
19. B2B will also make evaluation and competition among colleagues more common. Peer evaluation will be very easy. Everyone can compete with each other, and the results of the competition are very transparent. Relatively speaking, mutual cooperation will also be easier.
20. AI will make performance more transparent because employees’ work performance can be more accurately evaluated and monitored. This transparent monitoring will further strengthen supervision and collaboration among colleagues.
21. In addition, with the popularity of AI assistants, it will be easier and more flexible for people to change jobs in the future. AI assistants can help us download and call up all kinds of new skills we need at any time.
22. Historically, any technological change will eliminate many jobs, but it will also create enough new jobs, and this time will be the same. In the next 25 years, almost everyone’s familiar work content will be replaced by AI, but there may be few people who will lose their jobs because AI will create more new jobs that people have never seen before.
23. In the future, as society becomes more affluent, most people will have no worries about food and clothing, and many people’s work will move towards volunteer service and social welfare. Humans will tend to engage in jobs that require creativity and interpersonal interaction, which is an area that AI cannot easily replace
24. The next 25 years will be an era of continuous and huge changes. Faced with changes, people can adapt better, while AI is not so flexible.
25. In terms of the size of enterprises, there will be two extreme trends in the future. On the one hand, large enterprises can become larger and larger, and in the future there may even be super-large enterprises employing more than 1 million people; on the other hand, one-person/two-person companies will become particularly common, and the first super individual with annual sales of more than 1 billion US dollars will soon appear.
26. With the support of AI, starting a business will also become easier. In the next 25 years, everyone will have the opportunity to start a company. There will be more new types of start-ups, which are composed of innovators who work together around specific projects for a specific period of time.
27. As more people start their own businesses, there will be fewer and fewer entrepreneurs who aim to create Fortune 500 companies, and a company that continues to operate for 100 years may become very rare. In order to cope with the uncertain, discontinuous, and rapidly changing market environment, we will see that the form of enterprises is looser and more flexible, and the life cycle is shorter.