IBM: AI will not take away jobs, but change them for the better

IBM's top HR executive, Nickle LaMoreaux, has assured that artificial intelligence (AI) will not eliminate jobs at the tech giant, but rather enhance and modify them to allow employees to do more meaningful work. She said this in an exclusive interview with Moneycontrol, clarifying some earlier remarks by IBM's CEO Arvind Krishna.Krishna had said in a previous interview that IBM may stop hiring for some roles that could be replaced by AI in the future.

He had estimated that about 30 percent of non-customer-facing roles, or around 7,800 jobs, could be automated by AI in the next five years.However, LaMoreaux said that Krishna's statement was misunderstood by some media outlets."I think there are very few jobs that are going to be completely replaced by AI; very few jobs.

I also believe that there are going to be very few jobs that will be totally brand new. From an HR perspective, I worry that all of the media on this is getting it completely wrong," she said.She explained that Krishna was referring to only a small fraction of IBM's workforce of around 300,000 employees.

She said that maybe 2 percent of jobs will disappear and maybe 2 percent of jobs will be created from scratch."The bigger challenge for all of us is the 96% of jobs in the middle that are going to change. They are still going to exist, but how we do them will be completely different. I think the narrative is going wrong because people are talking about AI as a replacement technology—it's really a supplement," she added.

LaMoreaux said that AI will help employees to move up the value chain and do more creative and strategic work. She gave an example of how her HR team has used AI to automate some of the routine tasks and focus on more value-added activities.

We have moved professionals to higher value work. Though this is not a challenge in India, there are going to be some countries where the birth rates and the population dynamics are in a very dire state. And so they are not going to have enough labour to support their economy. I think some things like AI are the way to get through that if it can do kind of the Tier-I stuff. That way they can have men to do the higher value stuff," she said.On India capabilities and AI skillingIndia is a vital part of IBM's business and operations, accounting for nearly one-third of its global workforce.

India also plays a key role in developing IBM's AI capabilities, with 80 percent of the India R&D team working on IBM's AI and data platform offering, Watson X.IBM is also expanding its presence in new locations in India, such as Kochi and Gandhinagar. Kochi has an AI centre of excellence.

LaMoreaux visits India every year and said that she is impressed by the talent and innovation in the country."We often talk about India really being a microcosm of the larger idea of IBM. So, that's something that's pretty unique.

Getting a sense on the ground here is pretty exciting," she said.She said that almost 50 percent of IBM's current global workforce is trained in AI and India's number is slightly higher, as the country has a lot of software talent building the AI product. She said that many IBM employees have acquired AI skills by using teamers, an AI tool that helps them apply AI to their different processes."So, right now where it's some combination of AI skills, we're at 50%. And we're going to go north of that in the next 12 to 24 months," she said.

She has a vision of having 100% of IBM's employees understanding AI, "because it's going to transform all of our jobs".Focus on skill-based hiringWhile there is a lot of uncertainty in