Generational tipping point

Although it’s a concept dating back decades, the widespread take-up of generative AI (GenAI) began around 2022 with the release of ChatGPT. It was a wake-up call for governments and businesses alike, which must prepare for inevitable disruption.

According to Tram Anh Nguyen, co-founder of the centre for finance, technology and entrepreneurship (CFTE), people over the age of 40 in mid-career professional roles are the most at risk of major job disruption as businesses integrate AI into their operations. CFTE is a global education platform that specialises in training in the finance sector, including teaching AI in finance.

Nguyen, who is also Global Women in AI chair, spent decades working in the finance sector in business roles, said: “AI is no longer a future concept. It’s here and it’s affecting everyone at every level.”

But this does not mean professionals will be replaced if they are re-trained – and this does not just mean technical training.

Learning to prosper

Training on AI for non-technical roles will encompass professionals learning underlying knowledge about AI, the AI tools available to them and the use cases for AI in their roles, said Nguyen.

In its whitepaper titled The AI-fication of talents, CFTE said three groups of professionals will emerge. It reported that there will be: “mass displacement” of roles centred on execution which will be increasingly automated; “supercharged professionals” will emerge who use AI to expand scope and scale; while “creative disruptors” will be small group inventing new models, products and systems.

Nguyen warned that the UK is behind in readying the workforce for AI. “We are not preparing people in the right way because the focus is not on adult education at scale,” she told Computer Weekly.

She cited a project in Singapore which CFTE helped to design. It involves supporting mid-career transitions, particularly focusing on technology and finance sectors, while providing financial support to help people switching careers.

All Singaporeans aged 40 and above received funds to refresh their skills, with a large proportion taking up IT-related courses in areas including artificial intelligence.

Around 555,000 people participated in programmes supported by SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) in 2024 and 520,000 in 2023, according to Singapore newspaper The Straits Times.

These are significant numbers for Singapore, which has a population of around six million, but the same challenge is faced globally.

Cross-sector call to action

One sector being heavily affected is financial services, which leads the way in AI innovation and investment.

For example, Bloomberg Intelligence recently put the number of jobs set to be replaced by AI in the US finance sector – Wall Street specifically – at hundreds of thousands. CIOs questioned by the organisation expected 3% of their workforce to be cut on average. Around a quarter of respondents expect the workforce to be cut by between 5% and 10% as AI takes over roles, with the back and middle offices to be most affected.

According to research by banking industry benchmarking firm Evident, AI-related roles could be the only “safe jobs” in the banking sector as financial organisations “relentlessly” press on with AI-led transformation.

It’s banking industry report found that recruitment of AI development professionals grew by 6% in the last year, hiring of data engineers increased by 14%, and the number of AI and software implementation experts hired increased by 42%.

But while the finance sector finds itself on the front-line of the AI revolution, the technology’s rapid spread goes way beyond.

Bloomberg’s head of AI, Amanda Stent, recently told Computer Weekly in an interview that there has been “no revolution in history that has not led to job transformation”.

“Some types of job change, some types of job go away,” they added. “But there’s also no revolution in history that hasn’t led to more jobs created overall, I think that is true with AI, which will augment a lot of people.”

Stent said all workers, regardless of their roles, will have to learn to use AI: “We can teach people how to be effective users of AI without needing to know all that maths.”

The legal sector is an example of a traditional industry adapting to AI. The UK regulator of solicitors, the Solicitors Regulation Authority, recently authorised the first law firm to provide legal services purely through AI.

Mark Lewis, a lawyer at Stephenson Hardwood, specialised in technology, said most, “if not virtually all, serious law firms” are deploying AI and GenAI operationally.

“Typical use cases include document review, analysis and summarisation, legal research, case research and predicting the outcomes of cases, reviewing and reporting on the application of regulations around the world, and, of course, in law firm back-office operations – for example, in client due diligence and acceptance.”

But he added that AI is not “yet” causing “major disruption” in the legal sector: “As with talk of AI disrupting many sectors, including doing away with the work now done by paralegals, junior lawyers, and even senior lawyers, this hasn’t really happened yet in the legal markets here – or, I think, anywhere.

“There is a good deal of the usual tech hype about it. No doubt AI will become integral to legal process and lawyering at all levels, but, as in many other sectors, even that is going to take time and the maturing of legal use cases.”

He said firms are, however, preparing for the impact of AI: “We, like many firms, have made available to all our lawyers GenAI tools developed specifically for us, to be used within certain parameters and in accordance with our AI/GenAI policies.

“We want our lawyers to use these GenAI tools, to become accustomed to the way it processes work, to understand its strengths and limitations, and to become expert in creating and refining prompts.

“For me, there is an even more important – existential – point: the single biggest challenge is how we as a society learn to understand, live and work with AI. It should start as early as possible and continue through our lives.”

In the IT sector, AI is a huge business opportunity, but the technology is also transforming how suppliers operate.

Workers in the IT sector will also have to learn to work with AI. Amrinder Singh, head of EMEA and APAC operations at Indian IT services firm Hexaware, told Computer Weekly that all the company’s staff, around 30,000, will be trained how to harness AI.

He put it in startling terms the risks to workers that are not trained up. “We said that there is no future for single-skilled people,” he said. “Unless you are multi-skilled with domain understanding, as well as understanding how to use AI and technology, you will not survive.”