Dive Brief:
- Nearly 4 in 5 IT admins say AI adoption will have a net positive effect on their organization, according to a JumpCloud report published Wednesday. The company surveyed 1,213 SME IT decision-makers in November.
- Though only 6% of IT admins see the technology's effect as a net negative, nearly half say they're concerned about the impact of AI on their job.
- Younger technologists are more concerned about the potential effects of AI on their careers. IT admins who are 34 years old or younger are more worried about their career outlook in the age of AI than workers who are 45 and older.
Dive Insight:
The report's findings suggest AI will bring productivity to daily IT operations, but employees worry about what that will mean for them.
Up to two-thirds of jobs can expect some degree of impact as businesses adopt AI, according to Goldman Sachs. Currently, just 1 in 5 jobs is highly exposed to an AI takeover, Indeed says.
AI implementations tend to target repetitive, simple tasks for automation. In the IT realm, that means tier one help desk workers are most likely to feel the impact, even though it's more likely these workers can move to higher value tasks rather than being replaced.
AI is far from ready to wholly take the place of human workers in other types of tasks, mostly due to the upfront cost of putting those systems in place. Work that relies on human vision, such as quality inspections or medical imagery analysis, is still more cost-effective if performed by humans, according to MIT.
Generative AI can also produce incorrect responses to queries, muddying implementation efforts. Bias and privacy challenges present more hurdles.
As the technology matures, companies are already preparing for adoption, according to JumpCloud. Adoption plans and policies are underway or in the planning stages for most businesses, the report found.
