A report from the Deloitte Center for

Technology, Media & Telecommunications

Talent and workforce effects

in the age of AI
Insights from Deloitte’s State of AI in the Enterprise,
2nd Edition survey
About the Deloitte Center for Technology,
Media & Telecommunications

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Contents

Introduction 2

The changing nature of work 3

Minding the AI skills gap 6

Filling the AI skills gap: Replace versus retrain 9

Redesigning jobs: Automation and augmentation 12

Considerations for AI leaders 16

Endnotes 18
Talent and workforce effects in the age of AI

Introduction

Over the past few years, artificial intelligence has matured into a collection of
powerful technologies that are delivering competitive advantage to businesses
across industries. Global AI adoption and investment are soaring. By one
account, 37 percent of organizations have deployed AI solutions—up 270
percent from four years ago.1 Analysts forecast global AI spending will more
than double over the next three years, topping US$79 billion by 2022.2

C
OMPANIES AND COUNTRIES around the
globe increasingly view development of
strong AI capabilities as imperative to
staying competitive. Deloitte’s State of AI in the
Enterprise, 2nd Edition offers a global perspective
of AI early adopters, based on surveying 1,900 IT
and business executives from seven countries and a
variety of industries.3 These adopters are increasing
their spending on AI technologies and realizing
positive returns. Almost two-thirds (65 percent)
report that AI technologies are enabling their
organizations to move ahead of the competition. of job roles, and the skills that are most needed, are
Sixty-three percent of the leaders surveyed already evolving.
view AI as “very” or “critically” important to their
business success, and that number is expected to Indeed, the effect AI will ultimately have on jobs is
grow to 81 percent within two years. uncertain: Are we staring at a dim future in which
AI-driven automation has made most jobs obsolete,
These leaders see AI rapidly transforming their or is AI ushering in a new age characterized by
businesses and industries. Fifty-seven percent humans working in collaboration with the
predict that AI will “substantially transform” their technologies—augmented by AI capabilities rather
company within the next three years; two-thirds than displaced by them?4 Early indicators support
believe that their industry’s transformation will the optimistic view: While AI adopters express
happen within five years. As AI drives these concern about automation as an ethical risk, they
transformations, it is changing how work gets done emphatically believe that human workers and AI
in organizations by making operations more will augment each other, changing the nature of
efficient, supporting better decision-making, and work for the better.
freeing up workers from certain tasks. The nature

2
 Insights from Deloitte’s State of AI in the Enterprise, 2nd Edition survey

The changing nature of work

A
S AI ADOPTION advances, the way substantial changes to job roles and skills over the
organizations do their work is evolving. next three years.
Seventy-one percent of adopters report that
AI technologies have already changed their For AI adopters, improving internal business
company’s job roles and necessary skills, and 82 operations is a benefit on par with enhancing
percent believe AI will lead to moderate or products and services (figure 1). TiVo, for example,

FIGURE 1

AI benefits include improving operations and decision-making, as well as

freeing up workers to concentrate on less-mundane tasks
Rating each a top-three primary benefit of AI technology for their company

Enhance products and services

43%

Optimize internal business operations

41%

Make better decisions

34%

Automate tasks to free up workers to be more creative

31%

Optimize external processes

31%

Create new products

28%

Pursue new markets

27%

Capture and apply scarce knowledge

26%

Reduce headcount through automation

24%

Source: Deloitte analysis based on Deloitte’s AI in the Enterprise, 2nd Edition survey of 1,900 AI early adopters in seven
countries.
Deloitte Insights | deloitte.com/insights

3
Talent and workforce effects in the age of AI

streamlines IT operations by using a machine protocol to another—often a challenging decision

learning platform to automatically detect, classify,
5
for clinicians.7 Trained on historic health data from
aggregate, and route IT incidents.6 The AI-aided sepsis patients, the model predicts whether a
process has reduced actionable events from about patient will need vasopressor medications within
2,500 to 150 daily, enabling the professionals in the next few hours. In a clinical setting, the model
TiVo’s network operations center to more easily could be integrated into a bedside monitor, alerting
manage highly complex operations, 24/7. clinicians ahead of time when a treatment change
may be warranted—an
example of human experts and

“Beyond automating tasks, the other

AI achieving better
decisions together.
more remarkable impact of AI on an
Another top benefit of AI
enterprise will be on decision-making: involves automating tasks to

Large organizations still struggle to free up workers to be more

creative. Salesforce’s Einstein
make good decisions on time.” Voice Assistant—a voice-based
—— Jay Dwivedi, president, xInvest Consultants AI assistant for interacting
with Salesforce CRM
software—illustrates this
The third AI benefit—making better decisions—also benefit: Sales reps and other field workers speak
has implications for the nature of work. For conversationally to the assistant, which transcribes
example, researchers from MIT have developed a notes, automatically associates them with relevant
machine learning model designed to help ER accounts and contacts, and makes
physicians determine the optimal time to switch recommendations for follow-up tasks.8 Workers are
patients suffering from sepsis from one treatment freed from mundane data entry tasks and can

4
 Insights from Deloitte’s State of AI in the Enterprise, 2nd Edition survey

FIGURE 2

Integrating AI into a company’s operations is a challenge on par with issues

around building and deploying AI systems
Respondents ranking each a top-three challenge for their AI initiatives

Integrating AI into the company’s roles and functions

38%

Data issues
38%

Implementation challenges
37%

Cost of AI technologies/solution development

36%

Challenges in measuring and proving the business value of the AI solution

33%

Source: Deloitte analysis based on Deloitte’s AI in the Enterprise, 2nd Edition survey of 1,900 AI early adopters in seven
countries.
Deloitte Insights | deloitte.com/insights
instead concentrate their efforts on their company’s roles and functions” is tied for first place
customer interactions. as a challenge for AI initiatives—on par with
challenges related to building and deploying AI
Changing how work gets done within the (figure 2). Moreover, only 38 percent of executives
organization—by making operations more efficient, reported their organization has “high expertise” in
supporting better decision-making, and freeing up integrating AI into their business processes, and
workers from repetitive tasks—is core to what just 37 percent reported “high expertise” in
companies want to achieve with AI. Few anticipate integrating AI into their IT environments.
it being easy, though: “Integrating AI into the

5
Talent and workforce effects in the age of AI

Minding the AI skills gap

T
O MEET THEIR AI aspirations, companies skills gap as “major” or “extreme.” The gap is
will likely need the right mix of talent to evident across all countries surveyed, ranging from
translate business needs into solution 51 percent reporting moderate-to-extreme gaps in
requirements, build and deploy AI systems, China to 73 percent reporting the same in the
integrate AI into processes, and interpret results. United Kingdom.
However, most early adopters face an AI skills gap
and are looking for expertise to boost their What do leaders regard as the “most needed” roles
capabilities. In fact, 68 percent of executives to fill their company’s AI skills gap? The top four
surveyed report a moderate-to-extreme skills gap, most-needed roles are “AI builders,” who are
and more than a quarter (27 percent) rate their instrumental in creating AI solutions: researchers

FIGURE 3

As companies strive to fill their AI skills gap, “AI builders” are the most
sought-after professionals
Respondents rating each a top-two needed skill to fill their company's AI skills gap

AI builders AI translators

AI researchers
30%

Software developers
28%

Data scientists
25%

Project managers
23%

Business leaders
22%

Change management experts

22%

User experience designers

21%

Subject-matter experts
20%

Source: Deloitte analysis based on Deloitte’s AI in the Enterprise, 2nd Edition survey of 1,900 AI early adopters in seven
countries.
Deloitte Insights | deloitte.com/insights

6
 Insights from Deloitte’s State of AI in the Enterprise, 2nd Edition survey

FIGURE 4
to invent new kinds of AI algorithms and systems,
software developers to architect and code AI Companies with greater
systems, data scientists to analyze and extract experience building AI systems also
meaningful insights from data, and project report a larger AI skills gap
managers to ensure that AI projects are executed Adopters reporting major-to-extreme AI
according to plan (figure 3). Beyond these AI skills gap
builders, adopters are seeking “AI translators” who 47%
bridge the divide between the business and 37%
technical staff—both at the front and back ends of
28%
building AI solutions:
18%
• Business leaders to translate business
problems/needs into requirements that guide
the building of a solution, and to interpret Up to 5 6 to 10 11 to 20 More than 20
results from an AI system and make decisions Number of AI production systems undertaken

• Change management experts to implement Source: Deloitte analysis based on Deloitte’s AI in the
Enterprise, 2nd Edition survey of 1,900 AI early adopters in
change strategies and help integrate AI into the seven countries.
organization’s processes Deloitte Insights | deloitte.com/insights

As AI experience increases within an organization,

• User experience designers to make AI systems the kinds of roles that adopters seek undergo an
easier to navigate interesting shift. For companies with relatively
little AI experience (they’ve built five or fewer
• Subject-matter experts to infuse their domain production systems), AI researchers are the most
expertise into AI systems sought-after, with about a third of surveyed
executives rating them as a top-two needed role
As adopters gain experience building AI production (figure 5). Business leaders rank near the bottom.
systems, they amass and hone AI skills. Yet By the time adopters have become highly
companies with greater AI experience report a experienced at building AI solutions (they’ve built
larger skills gap (figure 4). Within organizations, 20 or more production systems), however, business
the supply of AI skills appears unable to keep up leaders have bubbled to the top, and AI researchers
with growing demand. have sunk almost to the bottom.

“I’m in favor of education of senior management before

establishing technical centers of excellence. Business needs
to lead the charge, and leaders need to believe in order to
drive the organization forward expeditiously.”
—— Jack C. Crawford, managing partner, Datalog.ai

7
Talent and workforce effects in the age of AI

FIGURE 5

As companies gain experience building AI systems, skill needs shift from a

focus on “AI researchers” to a desire for “business leaders”
Respondents rating each a top-two needed skill to fill their company’s AI skills gap

AI builders AI translators

Up to 5 AI production systems More than 20 AI production systems

AI researchers (32%) Business leaders (35%)

Software developers (28%) Software developers (28%)

Data scientists (26%) Data scientists (27%)

Project managers (25%) Project managers (23%)

Subject-matter experts (23%) User experience designers (23%)

Change management experts (20%) Change management experts (21%)

Business leaders (19%) AI researchers (21%)

User experience designers (17%) Subject-matter experts (15%)

Source: Deloitte analysis based on Deloitte’s AI in the Enterprise, 2nd Edition survey of 1,900 AI early adopters in
seven countries.
Deloitte Insights | deloitte.com/insights

What to make of this curious flip? Many

companies embarking on AI initiatives
Many companies embarking on
may feel they need to hire AI superstars— AI initiatives may feel they need
researchers with advanced degrees who
can invent new AI algorithms and to hire AI superstars.
techniques—to spearhead their efforts.9
And by the time organizations have accumulated techniques or create highly customized, domain-
substantial AI experience, they may have filled specific solutions.11 But not all companies will need
their ranks with enough of these brilliant to push these boundaries, and many can turn to an
technology experts. At that stage, companies have array of AI tools that can be used by software
shifted to seeking business leaders who can play developers without deep AI expertise, such as
the crucial “translator” role: figuring out what machine learning application program interfaces
results from AI systems mean, and how those (APIs), cloud-based AI services and AI
results should factor into business decisions development platforms, pretrained machine
and actions. learning models, and even automated machine
learning (AutoML).12 It’s worth noting (figure 5)
Is it possible that the less-experienced AI adopters that demand for software developers, data
are placing too much emphasis on finding AI scientists, and project managers—the crucial
researchers, who are scarce and in such high professionals who can plan, architect, and build AI
demand that they command lavish salaries?10 projects, and make use of existing AI tools and
These heavyweights are certainly called for when techniques to bring a project from concept to
one needs to invent new AI algorithms and

8
 Insights from Deloitte’s State of AI in the Enterprise, 2nd Edition survey

production—doesn’t wane as adopters gain more importance of involving business leaders early in
experience building AI solutions. the process: “Many companies rush into the AI race
without clear objectives, hope a brilliant AI
It’s also possible that less-experienced AI adopters researcher and a technology team can create
may be focusing too little on business leaders who something great without guidance, and end up with
are able to understand not only their organization’s little to show for it. Recruiting an AI quarterback to
business strategy but the ways in which AI provide the business input, and ensuring success
initiatives can support and accelerate it. In an with well-defined metrics, is the most important
article headlined, “The AI roles some companies job that most companies miss.”13
forget to fill,” the authors underscore the

9
Talent and workforce effects in the age of AI

Filling the AI skills gap

Replace versus retrain

H
OW ARE AI adopters attempting to fill their between the size of the AI skills gap in a particular
skills gap? Executives revealed a strong country and the preferred approach for
inclination to bring in new talent to plug addressing it.
the gap (figure 6). In fact, leaders are 3.1 times
more likely to prefer replacing employees with new The desire to replace workers with new, AI-ready
AI-ready talent, versus keeping and retraining their talent is clear, but is it a viable strategy at a time
existing workforce. when there’s fierce competition for expertise?
Reports reveal a scarcity of AI talent around the
Respondents in all countries surveyed lean toward world. Canadian firm Element AI recently analyzed
bringing in new talent (figure 7). At one extreme, LinkedIn profiles to gauge the size of the
AI adopters in Canada are 6.2 times more likely to worldwide top-tier AI talent pool and counted
favor replacing over retraining. At the other end, 36,524 self-reported PhD-level AI experts
Germany is just 1.7 times more likely to favor (including data scientists and machine learning
replacing employees—perhaps partially due to that researchers and engineers).15 We’ve already noted
country’s labor laws, which place stringent that not all AI adopters need to hire AI researchers,
requirements around employee dismissals. 14
but for those that do, that’s a tiny global pool to
Notably, there appears to be no correlation fight over. A 2017 report from Chinese tech titan
Tencent cast a wider net with looser criteria and
FIGURE 6 estimated that “AI researchers and practitioners”
number 300,000 worldwide (200,000 employed,
AI adopters prefer hiring new
plus 100,000 students in the pipeline).16 These two
AI-ready talent to keeping and
reports provide some useful bookend estimates for
retraining current workers
the global AI talent pool.
Tend to replace employees with new talent

Keep and replace employees in equal measure At the same time, trends on job search sites
Tend to keep and retrain current employees indicate strong demand for AI talent.17 A LinkedIn
search for AI-based jobs yields more than 64,000
56% 24% 18% US openings and over 230,000 worldwide
openings.18 It’s hardly surprising, then, that
3.1x
more likely to competition for AI-trained professionals is
“replace” than vigorous. Glassdoor chief economist Andrew
“keep and retrain”
Chamberlain reports that “the supply of people
Note: Percentages do not total 100 percent due to a small moving into this field is way below demand.”19
number of respondents who answered “Don't know.”
Employers report difficulty filling AI job openings,
Source: Deloitte analysis based on Deloitte’s AI in the
Enterprise, 2nd Edition survey of 1,900 AI early adopters in and some say it’s impeding their growth.20 Articles
seven countries.
abound about talent wars for techies such as AI
Deloitte Insights | deloitte.com/insights

10
 Insights from Deloitte’s State of AI in the Enterprise, 2nd Edition survey

FIGURE 7

Across surveyed countries, AI adopters consistently prefer hiring new talent to

address their AI skills gap
Tend to replace employees with new talent Keep and replace employees in equal measure

Tend to keep and retrain current employees

Replace vs. Moderate-to-extreme

retrain AI skills gap
Canada
68% 21% 11% 6.2x 72%

China
66% 19% 12% 5.5x 51%

France
53% 31% 16% 3.3x 57%

Australia
61% 19% 19% 3.2x 72%

United States
54% 25% 19% 2.8x 68%

United Kingdom
45% 30% 24% 1.9x 73%

Germany
44% 28% 26% 1.7x 62%

Note: Percentages may not total 100 percent due to a small number of respondents who answered “Don't know.”
Source: Deloitte analysis based on Deloitte’s AI in the Enterprise, 2nd Edition survey of 1,900 AI early adopters in seven
countries.
Deloitte Insights | deloitte.com/insights
researchers and data scientists (aka “America’s training their current workforces to strengthen
hottest job”).21 expertise and narrow their skills gap. The majority
are training developers to create AI solutions, IT
Companies may believe that seeking the best staff to deploy those solutions, and employees to
external talent will provide an advantage, but they use AI in their jobs (figure 8). Companies in
shouldn’t overlook the option of training their Germany appear to be outpacing other countries
existing employees. Indeed, notwithstanding their with their keen focus on training.
desire to replace workers, AI adopters also report

11
Talent and workforce effects in the age of AI

FIGURE 8

Companies are focused on training for a world in which humans work side by
side with AI
Conducting training for ...

Employees to use Developers to create IT staff to deploy

AI in their jobs new AI solutions AI solutions

Overall 56% 54% 59%

Australia 54% 52% 59%

Canada 52% 45% 51%

China 54% 67% 60%

France 57% 59% 58%

Germany 63% 64% 64%

United Kingdom 57% 52% 60%

United States 57% 54% 61%

Source: Deloitte analysis based on Deloitte’s AI in the Enterprise, 2nd Edition survey of 1,900 AI early adopters in seven
countries.
Deloitte Insights | deloitte.com/insights

12
 Insights from Deloitte’s State of AI in the Enterprise, 2nd Edition survey

Redesigning jobs
Automation and augmentation

T
HERE’S VIGOROUS DEBATE around the AI-driven automation is already taking over
ultimate effect of AI on jobs. Pessimists routine, repetitive tasks in many industries, and
foresee workers being largely supplanted by may even be used for complex, specialized efforts
robots and automation, and facing a dim future that were once the bailiwick of highly trained
with people competing for the few remaining jobs humans, such as radiology and pathology.24 MIT
that require human skills. Optimists believe that AI and CMU researchers—taking the perspective that
technologies—like other new technologies before occupations are collections of tasks—have analyzed
them—will produce more jobs than they eliminate nearly 1,000 occupations and more than 18,000
and give rise to new roles that call for new skills work tasks and assigned each a “suitability for
and different ways of working. 22
machine learning” (SML) score.25 Across industries,
they concluded that most occupations have at least
According to a 2018 World Economic Forum report some tasks that are SML but that there are few, if
on the future of jobs, companies expect work tasks any, occupations for which all tasks are SML. They
to be increasingly performed by machines. In 2018, propose shifting the debate away from a focus on
people carried out an estimated 71 percent of task full job automation and “pervasive occupational
hours; by 2022, the human share is expected to replacement” and toward the “redesign of jobs and
drop to 58 percent, with machines handling the reengineering of business processes.”
remaining 42 percent. Despite this sobering
finding, the report presents a positive global Deloitte researchers propose reimagining work not
forecast: While technology advances are expected as a set of tasks arranged in a predefined process
to displace as many as 75 million existing jobs, but, rather, as a collaborative effort in which
emerging tasks and roles are projected to generate “humans define the problems, machines help find
upward of 130 million jobs.23 The report cautions the solutions, and humans verify the acceptability
that achieving the predicted net job gains will of those solutions.”26 The concept of using
“entail difficult transitions for millions of workers computer intelligence to augment human
and the need for proactive investment in capabilities is hardly new: As early as 1960, the
developing a new surge of agile learners and skilled computer scientist and psychologist J.C.R.
talent globally … [I]t is critical that businesses take Licklider envisioned symbiotic partnerships
an active role in supporting their existing between humans and computers in which humans
workforces through reskilling and upskilling, that “set the goals, formulate the hypotheses, determine
individuals take a proactive approach to their own the criteria, and perform the evaluations” and
lifelong learning and that governments create an computers “do the routinizable work that must be
enabling environment, rapidly and creatively, to done to prepare the way for insights and
assist in these efforts.” decisions.”27

13
Talent and workforce effects in the age of AI

One dramatic example demonstrating Licklider’s ethical risk. Despite these worries, they
vision comes from a “freestyle chess” match held in resoundingly believe that AI has the potential to
2005, eight years after IBM’s Deep Blue change the workforce positively: Three-quarters
supercomputer famously defeated world chess agree that AI technologies already empower their
champion Garry Kasparov. Contestants could be employees to make better decisions, and the same
any combination of humans and computers, and proportion foresee human workers and AI
the surprise victors were two amateurs who augmenting each other, encouraging new ways of
“coached” three computers. Kasparov noted that working. Seven in 10 believe AI will enhance
“weak human + machine + better process was employee job performance and satisfaction.

Companies are recognizing that

“Focus on augmenting people, not automation is not synonymous with
job elimination. Notably, “reduce
replacing them. Despite concerns, AI head count through automation” is

is not all about reducing labor costs, the least popular AI benefit
reported by our survey respondents,
and organizations that approach the and a greater proportion of

technology in this manner stand to executives ranked “free up workers

to be more creative by automating
miss out on real gains. Instead, early tasks” as a top AI benefit (figure 1).

AI projects should focus on enabling

While executives in Australia see AI
automation more as a way to reduce
employees to pursue higher value head count, adopters in the other
countries surveyed—especially
activities.” China and the United Kingdom—
—— Falguni Desai, global head of strategy and show a distinct preference for using
transformation, equities, Credit Suisse AI automation to free up workers
for higher-value tasks (figure 9). As
superior to a strong computer alone and, more Licklider predicted, organizations can use AI to
remarkably, superior to a strong human + machine automate mundane tasks, freeing up human
+ inferior process. … Human strategic guidance workers to apply their uniquely human capabilities
combined with the tactical acuity of a computer (such as interpretation, communication, judgment,
was overwhelming.”28 and empathy) to less-routine tasks, as well as to
explore new problems and opportunities.29 Deloitte
Where do AI adopters stand on automation and researchers believe that companies that use
augmentation? At least in the short term, cost- automation primarily to optimize processes and
cutting through automation appears alluring: reduce costs (for example, through job cuts) will
Nearly two-thirds of our survey respondents agree likely struggle to significantly expand value
(22 percent strongly agree) that their organization creation in the long term; they recommend that
would like to cut costs by automating as many jobs companies create a strategy around “redefining
as possible. However, the potential for job work”—encouraging workers with newly freed-up
disruption is concerning, and 36 percent rank job capacity to identify and create new sources of value
cuts from AI-driven automation as a top-three for their businesses.30

14
 Insights from Deloitte’s State of AI in the Enterprise, 2nd Edition survey

FIGURE 9

AI adopters see more value in using AI-driven automation to free up workers

for more creative tasks than in using it to eliminate jobs
Rate “reduce headcount through automation” a top-three AI benefit

Rate “free up workers to be more creative by automating tasks” a top-three AI benefit

Australia
29%
24%

Canada
24%
28%
Greater relative belief in AI automation to

France
support higher-value tasks

27%
31%

Germany
20%
27%

United States
24%
31%

China
22%
44%

United Kingdom
14%
37%

Source: Deloitte analysis based on Deloitte’s AI in the Enterprise, 2nd Edition survey of 1,900 AI early adopters in seven
countries.
Deloitte Insights | deloitte.com/insights

Across industries, there are signs that societal standards to algorithms.31 Avoiding bias—
organizations are reimagining some jobs as in AI algorithms and the data used to train
teamwork between humans and AI (see sidebar, them—is an important ethical consideration when
“AI and humans in collaboration”). As human- building AI solutions.32 Some experts predict the
machine collaborations emerge, Deloitte emergence of new oversight roles to evaluate AI
researchers have cautioned that organizations systems for adherence to laws, regulations, and
should not outsource fairness, morality, and ethical standards.33

15
Talent and workforce effects in the age of AI

AI AND HUMANS IN COLLABORATION

Deep learning assists pathologists
For pathologists, recognizing cancer metastases in lymph node tissue is time-consuming and error-
prone. Studies indicate that about one-quarter of metastatic cancer stagings would be reclassified
upon a second pathologic review and that small metastases can be underdetected when reviews
are time-constrained.34 Google AI has developed a deep learning program—LYmph Node Assistant
(LYNA)—to detect metastatic cancer, training it on high-resolution pathology slides of lymph nodes
from breast cancer patients. LYNA has been able to detect 92.4 percent of tumors—compared with
73.2 percent recognized by human pathologists—and has accurately identified suspicious areas of
tissue that are sometimes too small for human detection.35
LYNA could be used to alert pathologists to areas of concern for further human review and diagnosis.
In a test with simulated diagnostic tasks, six pathologists saw their average time to review tissue
slides reduced from about two minutes to one minute per slide with LYNA’s aid.36 The researchers
noted that “pathologists with LYNA assistance were more accurate than either unassisted
pathologists or the LYNA algorithm itself, suggesting that people and algorithms can work together
effectively to perform better than either alone.”37

Programmers get a boost from AI

Game company Ubisoft has created Commit Assistant, an AI-based bug detector.38 When developers
commit new code to a codebase, the tool can identify potential bugs—based on what it has learned
from past coding errors—and alert developers to review and fix the code. Ubisoft reports the AI
assistant can accurately identify six in 10 software problems and expects it to eventually even
suggest potential code fixes.
Other tools can provide a time-saving boost to developers during the coding process. Deep TabNine
is a deep learning model that has been trained on 2 million GitHub code files.39 As programmers
type code, Deep TabNine predictively presents “code autocomplete” suggestions, not unlike phrase
autocompletes on a search engine page.

16
 Insights from Deloitte’s State of AI in the Enterprise, 2nd Edition survey

AI AND HUMANS IN COLLABORATION, CONT.

Virtual agents and humans cooperate on customer service
Companies across industries are employing AI-based virtual agents—chatbots—to handle customer
service and IT support calls. These agents can process thousands of calls annually, learning and
adapting as they go, leading to reduced time and cost per call and improved customer experience.40
Some companies view chatbots as a way to lessen the burden on their human support personnel,
who are freed up to work on higher-value tasks. In other cases, virtual agents assist human agents
by sifting through documents and delivering the right information exactly when needed.
Having humans in the loop is still considered essential.41 When chatbots get stuck because they
can’t discern a caller’s intent or face a complex issue for which they haven’t yet been trained—or
when human empathy is needed to soothe frustrated callers—calls typically get routed to humans.
And in one survey, 93 percent of chatbot owners reported that having humans interact with bots,
for validation and curation, is important to improving chatbot performance.42 For example, the
software company LivePerson offers an AI-powered dashboard that allows humans to serve as “bot
managers,” monitoring and troubleshooting chatbots.43 Using sentiment analysis, the dashboard
displays real-time customer satisfaction scores for calls, and if a score drops too low, a human
bot manager can seamlessly take over and tweak the conversation. Furthermore, LivePerson
employs deep learning to recommend “next actions” to human agents and to continually improve
chatbot interactions.44

17
Talent and workforce effects in the age of AI

Considerations for AI leaders

C
OMPANIES IN THE AI game are feeling a no silver bullet to fix AI skills gaps. In addition to
sense of urgency as their businesses and hiring, leaders should consider identifying and
industries undergo AI-fueled reskilling current developers, IT staff, and other
transformation. At a time when competition for AI employees to help build up the company’s AI
skills is fierce, maintaining a competitive advantage expertise. Consider establishing programs to train
may depend upon having a strategy for dealing developers to create AI solutions and IT staff to
with AI talent shortages and the changing nature deploy those solutions.
of work.
Given the difficulties of integrating AI technologies
Early adopters should consider strengthening their into the company’s operations, leaders should also
AI foothold by: consider structured programs to train employees
on how to use AI systems in the course of their
Deciding what skills are needed. From the jobs, and also develop structured ways to integrate
start, AI adopters should take a close look at how AI into roles and functions. For their own part,
specialized their AI needs are. Then they can employees should aim to embrace an attitude of
consider whether they really need AI research
superstars to break new AI ground, or whether they
can achieve their goals with a skilled engineering
team that can be trained to use available AI tools.

Adopters should also consider involving business

leaders early and throughout the life cycle of AI
initiatives. These leaders can connect the
company’s business models and strategy to the
requirements for AI systems, as well as establish
metrics for project success. Given the challenge of
integrating AI into a company’s roles and
functions, AI adopters should also consider how
change management experts might be utilized.
These professionals, who work to ensure that
organizations actually use new systems or
processes after developing them, may be one key to
overcoming AI integration hurdles.

Finding the right balance between hiring

and reskilling. Given AI talent shortages,
replacing existing workers with AI-ready talent is

18
 Insights from Deloitte’s State of AI in the Enterprise, 2nd Edition survey

lifelong learning and consider how AI assistance like—and evolve it as their AI capabilities advance.
may supercharge their work in the future. They should consider creating a strategy for
“redefining work”—focused on how workers with
Redesigning work for the age of AI. AI-driven freed-up capacity can create new sources of
automation will likely change the nature of how business value.45
many humans conduct their jobs. But automation
has a role far broader than reducing head count or One area where human judgment is absolutely
optimizing processes: As we saw in the pathology needed is ensuring that organizations build and
and IT incident management examples, deploy AI systems in ethical ways. The Notre Dame
organizations can use automation to free workers Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership promotes
from repetitive or error-prone tasks, allowing them the view that everyone involved in advancing AI—
to bring their human skills of judgment, from corporate boards and management, to
interpretation, and empathy to bear on more researchers and engineers—shares responsibility
complex decisions. Leaders should create a vision for applying ethical constructs throughout the AI
now for what their “augmented workforce” looks product life cycle.46

19
Talent and workforce effects in the age of AI

Endnotes

1. Pooja Singh, “Enterprise use of AI has grown 270 percent globally over the past four years,” Entrepreneur Asia
Pacific, January 22, 2019.

2. International Data Corporation, “Worldwide spending on artificial intelligence systems will grow to nearly $35.8
billion in 2019, according to new IDC spending guide,” March 11, 2019.

3. Jeff Loucks et al., Future in the balance? How countries are pursuing an AI advantage, Deloitte Insights, May 1,
2019. To obtain a global view of how organizations are adopting and benefiting from AI technologies, in Q3
2018 Deloitte surveyed 1,900 IT and line-of-business executives from companies that are prototyping or
implementing AI solutions. Seven countries were represented: Australia, Canada, China, Germany, France, the
United Kingdom, and the United States.

4. Deloitte, Unleashing talent in the Age of With™: Your people with augmented power, 2019.

5. With machine learning technologies, computers can be taught to analyze data, identify hidden patterns, make
classifications, and predict future outcomes. These systems are able to improve accuracy over time without
being explicitly programmed. Most AI technologies, including advanced and specialized applications such
as natural language processing and computer vision, are based on machine learning and its more complex
progeny, deep learning.

6. BigPanda, “TiVo embraces BigPanda,” April 4, 2019, YouTube video, 2:44.

7. Rob Matheson, “Machine-learning system could aid critical decisions in sepsis care,” MIT News, November 7,
2018.

8. Bill Detwiler, “How Salesforce is making Einstein Voice a customizable voice assistant for today’s mobile
workers and data-hungry businesses,” TechRepublic, June 14, 2019.

9. Megan Beck, Thomas H. Davenport, and Barry Libert, “The AI roles some companies forget to fill,” Harvard
Business Review, March 14, 2019.

10. Cade Metz, “Tech giants are paying huge salaries for scarce A.I. talent,” New York Times, October 22, 2017.

11. George Seif, “Don’t make this big machine learning mistake: Research vs application,” Towards Data Science,
August 10, 2018.

12. Google Cloud, “Cloud AI building blocks,” accessed February 3, 2020; Amazon Web Services, “Machine learning
on AWS,” accessed February 3, 2020; IBM, “AI tools for business,” accessed February 3, 2020; Parul Pandey,
“AutoML: The next wave of machine learning,” Heartbeat, April 18, 2019.

13. Beck, Davenport, and Libert, “The AI roles some companies forget to fill.”

14. Many employees in Germany are protected by the Protection against Dismissal Act (Kündigungsschutzgesetz),
which sets out strict legal requirements around employee terminations, including those for reasons relating
to company operations. See Sabine Feindura, “Hire and fire: Protection against unfair dismissal in Germany,”
Labor Law Magazine, September 26, 2016.

15. Element AI, Global AI talent report 2019, 2019. This study searched LinkedIn for individuals with doctoral degrees
who describe their work as “machine learning” and who have job titles of “data scientist,” “research scientist,”
“machine learning engineer,” “machine learning researcher,” or “data analyst.” The researchers explain that a
PhD is a “useful proxy for the highly technical skills required to qualify as a specialist.” Their LinkedIn queries
indicated 36,524 people who qualified as self-reported AI specialists according to the criteria. The authors note
some caveats, including that profiles contain self-reported information and that LinkedIn is not widely used in
all countries.

20
 Insights from Deloitte’s State of AI in the Enterprise, 2nd Edition survey

16. James Vincent, “Tencent says there are only 300,000 AI engineers worldwide, but millions are needed,” Verge,
December 5, 2017.

17. Indeed, “Top 10 AI jobs, salaries and cities,” June 28, 2019; Sarah Overmyer, “Jobs of the future: Emerging trends
in artificial intelligence,” Indeed, August 23, 2018. Indeed reports that AI job postings on its site increased 136.3
percent from May 2016 to May 2017, 57.9 percent from May 2017 to May 2018, and 29.1 percent from May
2018 to May 2019. Searches for AI-related jobs on Indeed rose 49.1 percent between May 2016 and May 2017,
rose 32 percent between May 2017 and May 2018, and decreased by 14.5 percent from May 2018 to May 2019.
The decrease in searches may indicate there are more available AI jobs than qualified professionals to fill them.

18. Job searches were performed on LinkedIn.com on January 15, 2020, using the Boolean search query: “artificial
intelligence” or “ai” or “machine learning” or “deep learning” or “natural language processing” or “computer
vision.” It’s important to note that not all job openings are posted to LinkedIn, and some countries have higher
usage of the site than others. We present the numbers as a rough barometer of demand for AI skills.

19. Ann Saphir, “As companies embrace AI, it’s a job-seeker’s market,” Reuters, October 15, 2018.

20. Ibid.

21. Michael Sasso, “This is America’s hottest job,” Bloomberg, May 18, 2018.

22. Wall Street Journal, “Will AI destroy more jobs than it creates over the next decade?”, April 1, 2019; Peter Evans-
Greenwood, Harvey Lewis, and Jim Guszcza, “Reconstructing work: Automation, artificial intelligence, and the
essential role of humans,” Deloitte Review 21, July 31, 2017.

23. World Economic Forum, The Future of Jobs Report 2018, 2018. A promising early data point comes from a
prominent online job board that analyzed proprietary data from more than 50 million job postings, as well as
survey results from job seekers and employers, and concluded that AI created three times as many jobs as it
destroyed in 2018; see Alison DeNisco Rayome, “AI created 3x as many jobs as it killed last year,” TechRepublic,
June 27, 2019.

24. Forbes Technology Council, “Tech experts predict 13 jobs that will be automated by 2030,” Forbes, March 1,
2019; James Guszcza, Harvey Lewis, and Peter Evans-Greenwood, “Cognitive collaboration: Why humans and
computers think better together,” Deloitte Review 20, January 23, 2017.

25. Erik Brynjolfsson, Tom Mitchell, and Daniel Rock, “What can machines learn, and what does it mean for
occupations and the economy?,” AEA Papers and Proceedings, 2018.

26. Guszcza, Lewis, and Evans-Greenwood, “Cognitive collaboration”; Evans-Greenwood, Lewis, and Guszcza,
“Reconstructing work.”

27. J.C.R. Licklider, “Man-computer symbiosis,” IRE Transactions on Human Factors in Electronics, March 1960.

28. Garry Kasparov, “The chess master and the computer,” New York Review of Books, February 11, 2010.

29. Deloitte researchers assert that, while the skills needed to execute specific tasks are ever-changing and
subject to automation and obsolescence, enduring human capabilities that help with understanding the
context of a problem, exploring alternative solutions, and creatively applying new techniques will outlast
technology advances and market shifts. They recommend that businesses embrace and cultivate these human
capabilities—e.g., imagination, empathy, curiosity, resilience, creativity, social intelligence, teaming, and critical
thinking—in order to increase their strategic advantage. See John Hagel, John Seely Brown, and Maggie Wooll,
Skills change, but capabilities endure: Why fostering human capabilities first might be more important than reskilling
in the future of work, Deloitte Insights, August 30, 2019.

30. John Hagel, Jeff Schwartz, and Maggie Wooll, “Redefining work for new value: The next opportunity,” MIT Sloan
Management Review, December 3, 2019.

31. Guszcza, Lewis, and Evans-Greenwood, “Cognitive collaboration.”

21
Talent and workforce effects in the age of AI

32. Jonathan Shaw, “Artificial intelligence and ethics: Ethics and the dawn of decision-making machines,” Harvard
Magazine, January–February 2019; Lynda Spiegel, “The dangers of asking AI to evaluate a job candidate’s
interview,” Wall Street Journal, October 16, 2019.

33. Rick Wartzman, “How AI anxiety is creating more jobs for humans,” Fast Company, April 25, 2018.

34. Martin Stumpe and Craig Mermel, “Applying deep learning to metastatic breast cancer detection,” Google AI
Blog, October 12, 2018.

35. Yun Liu et al., “Detecting cancer metastases on gigapixel pathology images,” Google Research, 2017; Stumpe
and Mermel, “Applying deep learning to metastatic breast cancer detection.”

36. Stumpe and Mermel, “Applying deep learning to metastatic breast cancer detection.”

37. Ibid.

38. Robert Lemos, “Will AI help dev and test teams—or replace them?,” TechBeacon, accessed February 3, 2020.

39. Reina Qi Wan, “Deep TabNine: A powerful AI code autocompleter for developers,” Medium, July 19, 2019.

40. P.V. Kannan and Josh Bernoff, “The future of customer service is AI-human collaboration,” MIT Sloan
Management Review, May 29, 2019.

41. Jared Council, “When chatbots falter, humans steer them the right way,” WSJ Pro Artificial Intelligence, June 12,
2019.

42. Eileen Brown, “New research finds human validation is critical for chatbot owners,” ZDNet, May 1, 2018.

43. Alec Sears, “Chatbots for the retail industry—current applications,” Emerj—Artificial Intelligence Research and
Insight, December 12, 2018.

44. LivePerson Knowledge Center, “LivePerson’s conversational commerce platform,” accessed January 30, 2020.

45. Hagel, Schwartz, and Wooll, Redefining work for new value.

46. Deloitte, AI ethics: A new imperative for businesses, boards, and C-suites, 2019. The Notre Dame Deloitte Center for
Ethical Leadership is a collaboration between the University of Notre Dame and Deloitte.

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 Insights from Deloitte’s State of AI in the Enterprise, 2nd Edition survey

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Jeff Loucks for astute insights and discussions that helped shape this
topic, and Sayantani Mazumder for her invaluable data analysis efforts and support in creating this
report. Thanks are also due to Paul Sallomi, David Jarvis, Natasha Buckley, and Susan Hogan for
contributing thoughtful suggestions to our work, and Jeanette Watson for her valued guidance.

About the authors

Susanne Hupfer, PhD | shupfer@deloitte.com

Susanne Hupfer is a research manager with Deloitte’s Center for Technology, Media &
Telecommunications, Deloitte Services LP, specializing in the technology sector. She conducts research
to understand the impact of technology trends on enterprises and to deliver actionable insights to
business and IT leaders. Prior to joining Deloitte, Hupfer worked for over two decades in the
technology industry, in roles that included software research and development, strategy consulting,
and thought leadership.

23
Talent and workforce effects in the age of AI

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