Global Megatrends Insight Highlights Series | Page 8

5Automation, AI &
machine learning
The pace of change in digital transformation
is exponential. How we embrace such
advancements, or simply even how we
integrate them into our everyday lives, is a
key differentiator in how we prepare now to
be future ready.
Developments in previously disjointed fields
such as AI and machine learning, robotics
and nanotechnology are all building on
and amplifying one another. Smart systems;
homes, factories, even entire cities, will help
tackle problems ranging from supply chain
management to climate change.
The comfort level on the adoption of AI
has increased overnight. One of those is
the shift to AI and automation. In a 2017
report, management consultancy McKinsey
suggested that a third of US jobs would be
replaced by automation by 2030 but that
timetable might have accelerated by the
lockdown in recent months. Automation,
AI and machine learning technologies have
helped mitigate many of the impacts of the
COVID-19 pandemic, allowing organisations
to continue to provide their services as they
transform the way they operate. As whole
industries adjust and new ones are born,
many occupations will undergo a fundamental
transformation. Together, these changes
between them will generate new categories
of jobs and occupations while partly or wholly
displacing others. Those that have already
adopted a new AI focused approach may
normalise automation within operations as
the world begins to open up to retain the
streamlined, and in some ways, cost effective
model.