Companies using AI to 'rewire' employees for the next industrial revolution

The use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in the workplace might not be the singular threat to employment that many human workers anticipate.

HR Dive reports that machine learning and automation will be leveraged not to replace workers but to retrain them. It cites Making the Most of Machine Learning: 5 Lessons from Fast Learners, research from SAP and the Economist Intelligence Unit, in which 75 percent of respondents to a poll of 360 senior executives from North and Latin America, Asia Pacific and Europe say that they plan to retrain employees displaced by machine learning.

In fact, 41 percent of “Fast Learners” — organizations that are already using machine learning — say they see higher levels of customer satisfaction following implementation.

Related: Digital innovation key to companies’ ability to recruit, retain workers

While employees fear being replaced by AI, the report says that many industries are “looking to rewire employees for the coming 4th Industrial Revolution”—and that tech also can provide employers more time to focus on employee development, which can serve as a powerful attraction for job candidates in a job seeker’s market.

In addition, according to a report in The Economist, AI is changing how workers are recruited and retained, injecting new life into the overworked and understaffed HR sector by plowing through resumes far faster than humans can do it, identifying good candidates and eliminating bias, providing that the algorithms on which it runs are properly structured.

AI can return to candidates that weren’t an appropriate fit for the job for which they applies when an appropriate opening does become available, as well as screen in-house job candidates among existing employees for new job openings at a rate comparable to that of human HR screeners. It can even tweak job descriptions so that they bring in 25 percent more qualified people and boost recruitment among minorities by weeding out jargon that turns off women and minorities from applying.

And it does these things faster than a human staffer could.

When you consider that AI can also detect a high likelihood of turnover before the employee leaves, and can work to forestall that employee’s departure, and in the future could possibly be used to determine the pace and amount of pay raises, it’s clear that one area that could see a major disruption in the number of personnel is in recruiting itself—although for those who remain, the report adds, “AI will make work easier and more interesting.”