There are plenty of scary headlines about robots taking our jobs across all levels, departments and territories, but research shows that it’s employers, not employees, who should be nervous right now. The shortage of AI specialists is only a small part of the challenge.

According to PwC’s international jobs automation study, which analyzed the job market in 29 countries, just 1% of jobs will disappear thanks to automation, which includes AI as a subset. AI right now is mostly about allowing humans be more productive and make better decisions. Focusing on AI as a cause of mass unemployment isn’t necessary. The technology is not smart enough (yet) to do too much work on its own.

Farther in the future, the job market may feel a bigger impact, but AI is developing so fast, it’s hard to know what it will look like in 10 or 20 years. Still, there are some trends in AI that are apparent right now. One is that companies need to not just recruit, but also retrain — and on a massive scale.

We’ve Got The Jobs, But No One To Do Them

With AI’s potential growing fast, I hear it more and more often: We need more employees who can work with AI.

In our recent global CEO survey, 70% said they were concerned about the availability of digital skills in their senior leadership team, and another 76% were concerned about digital skills in their workforce as a whole.

What applies to digital in general applies to AI in particular. Besides a small core of AI specialists who many companies will need to recruit, organizations also need their current talent to become more AI savvy.

What They Will Need To Know