Mary Alice Vuicic is chief people officer at Thomson Reuters.
The conventional narrative on AI in the workplace has shifted rapidly in recent months as more professionals have begun using the technology in their day-to-day lives. Instead of concern that AI could replace them or fear that their skills would somehow become less marketable, the vast majority of professionals now say they see AI as a “force for good” in their professions — a tool that will help them unlock new levels of creativity and make them even more valuable to employers.
What’s changed to make AI so much more approachable and what, exactly, are the skills that matter most for professionals to seize these opportunities?
AI as career ally
The answer to the first question is experience. Just five days after its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT gained one million users. By January of 2023, that number had mushroomed to more than 100 million, making it the fastest-growing consumer technology in history.
Given the broad applicability of these consumer tools to many work-related tasks — research, content summarization and drafting, to name a few — it did not take long for professionals to start to see where AI could help them at work. In fact, according to Thomson Reuters research, 63% of professionals working in legal; tax; and risk and compliance sectors are already using AI-powered technologies as a starting point for many work-related tasks.
The more people use AI, the more they embrace its potential to help them do their jobs better. In fact, based on those experiences, 77% of professionals now predict AI will have a high or transformational impact on their work over the next five years. As we dig deeper into the ways AI is being deployed in the real world and look at the specific areas where it is helping most, we find that the biggest transformation is not automation or replacement of human work — it is an augmentation of the human skillset. AI is enabling a shift in focus toward higher-value tasks that put an emphasis on soft skills, and this is where the real potential for AI is really just beginning to come into focus.
Beyond the checklist approach to the workday
Take a seemingly simple task like writing the first draft of a business letter reminding clients of an upcoming policy change. For most professionals, this is what we refer to as a “no joy” task. It is one of those items that needs to be checked off a to-do list and, for many of us, the process starts with staring at a blank screen agonizing about how to get started. When the letter is finally finished, no one gets extra points for style or creative flair; the core value was in recognizing that it needed to be sent in the first place and ensuring that it clearly anticipates any questions clients may have.
By removing the drudgery from that equation, AI makes it possible for professionals to spend more time focusing on achieving the desired outcome. And that changes everything about the way professionals can add value in the post-AI workplace. Whether it’s a streamlining the form letter-writing process, summarizing lengthy legal and regulatory documents, or trawling through reams of data looking for anomalies, AI is shifting the focus of professional work away from knocking items off a to-do list and toward a more creative problem-solving approach to the workday.
Developing the ultimate professional skillset
Along the way, AI is making soft skills like adaptability, creativity, leadership, curiosity and tech fluency more important than ever.
It’s more than just an efficiency play. The most successful business implementations of AI are those that help professionals recognize that work is not just about the volume of outputs they can produce; it is about leveraging all available resources — including technology — to achieve big picture outcomes.
To that end, the most important single skillset for professionals operating in this environment is what we call the adaptability quotient. It refers to the ability of knowledge workers to recognize new opportunities, embrace creative problem-solving and adopt new approaches focused on achieving the best end result. It is the opposite of doing things the old-fashioned way simply because that’s how we’ve always done them.
The fact is things are changing fast in the current professional environment. From flexible work models to digital transformation to the rise of AI, the old model of grinding out hours behind a desk to produce the highest volume of work product is rapidly being replaced by an innovation economy that rewards new ways of thinking. Professionals in the best position to thrive in that environment will be those who aren’t afraid to challenge the status quo, and AI is increasingly playing a major role in helping them do that.