Accenture identified 200 language-related tasks and evaluated which tasks are likely to be automated or enhanced. Getty Images
There have been four moments in my life where technology has truly amazed me. The first was in 1983, when I saw the first Apple Lisa graphical user interface. When I saw his one of the first web browsers in 1992. Around 2007, the iPhone was released. And last year, I started digging deeper into the large-scale language models that underlie generative artificial intelligence.
The rise of ChatGPT and other forms of generative AI will see a fundamental shift in how people work and access information. We are still in the early stages and many big questions are emerging, including whether these changes will replace parts of the workforce. What we do know is that by melding technology and human capabilities to approach work differently, we can enable people to perform at levels that are simply not possible today. about it.
Generative AI can be thought of as a superpower that brings new levels of productivity, creativity, and skill to everyday tasks—a multiplication of human capabilities.
Companies will need to think differently about work. While some employees learn new skills to be effective, others need to adapt to working with AI co-pilots all the time. As this becomes the norm, these models will be used to reinvent the way work is done, dramatically expanding what people can achieve.
Change task
Every role in every company has the potential to be reinvented. To calculate the impact of generative AI, Accenture manually identified 200 language-relevant tasks and assessed which tasks were likely to be automated or enhanced.
Today, we estimate that generative AI will impact 40% of people’s working hours. This does not mean that 40% of jobs will be cut.
As with any job, some tasks will be automated, some tasks will be assisted, people will be able to do more important work, and some tasks will not be affected by technology. There will also be many new tasks that humans will have to perform, such as using new AI-powered systems accurately and responsibly.
One good example is customer service. The ability of generative AI to understand customer intent and make large amounts of information available to agents at once greatly improves the ability of agents to solve customer issues faster and more thoroughly. A recent MIT/Stanford University study suggests that it makes him 14% more productive than a chatbot or human could do alone.
How we work together
The potential is enormous across all kinds of roles. We look forward to her five primary ways generative AI generally works with people.
- As Always-on Advisorfrom sales enablement and human resources to medical and scientific research to corporate strategy, bringing new kinds of intelligence into the human hands.
- As creative Partnerproviding new ways to reach and engage audiences, bringing unprecedented speed and innovation to production design, design research, visual identity and naming, copy generation and testing, and real-time personalized customer relationship marketing. Brings
- As software developer, increasing productivity in a variety of areas, from automating code creation to predicting and preempting problems. For example, Accenture is piloting an OpenAI large scale language model that can automatically generate SAP documents through Microsoft Teams chat while developers are working.
- As automation driverEspecially tasks that provide historical context, suggest next-best actions, summarize, or make intelligent predictions.
- As enterprise protectorEnterprises learn how to use generative AI to their advantage in governance and information security. The world’s largest oil and gas companies use it to make data easily accessible across their business, which reduces the risk of safety incidents.
Businesses should evaluate a wide range of options, from using AI applications such as ChatGPT and DALL-E, to customizing or fine-tuning models with their own data for greater accuracy and usefulness.
It is equally important that the use of generative AI is responsible by design and that the models do not create unacceptable risks for people and businesses. Also, more work needs to be done by policy makers and businesses to build collaborative governance approaches. As such, AI is developed in an inclusive, safe, and ethical manner while enabling progress and fostering experimentation. This builds a vital foundation for trust across society, while unlocking new sources of growth.
By reimagining how work is done and applying generative AI to tasks where humans can work differently alongside machines, companies can gain significant advantages over less innovative competitors. Now is the time to start experimenting.
Paul Daugherty is Accenture’s CTO and Group CEO of Technology.he is the co-author of Human + Machine: Reimagining work in the AI age.
The opinions expressed in commentary articles on Fortune.com are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or beliefs of the authors. luck.
