Paris: Though imminent AI-driven mass unemployment forecasts are likely to be exaggerated, employers are looking for workers with different skills as technology matures, a top executive at global recruiter ManpowerGroup said at the Vivedch fair in Paris.
The world's third largest staffing agency by revenue has held a startup contest at Vivedach. There, one candidate was building a system in which a customizable autonomous AI “agents” were hired, rather than humans. Their services are reminiscent of warnings from Dario Amody, the head of American AI giant humanity last month, that technology can wipe out half of the entry-level white-collar work within a year or five years.
For ManPowerGroup, AI agents “certainly won't become our core business any time soon,” said Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, the company's chief innovation officer. “If history shows us one thing, that's why most of these predictions are wrong.”
An International Labour Organization (ILO) report published in May found that “one in four people around the world are in occupations with some degree of exposure to the capabilities of the generator AI model.” “Now there are very few jobs that are at risk for fully automation,” the ILO added.
However, the United Nations agency highlighted the “rapid expansion of AI capabilities since previous research” in 2023. This allows for the emergence of the “agent” model to act autonomously or semi-autonomously and use software such as web browsers and emails.
Chamorro-Premuzic predicted that the adoption of efficiency-enhancing AI tools will put pressure on workers, managers and businesses to make the most of their time they save. “What happens with AI is that it helps knowledge workers save 30, 40, and perhaps 50% of their time, but that time is wasted on social media, but that's not an increase in net output,” he said.
Published on 15 June 2025 in Dawn
