Adecco CEO predicts AI will raise job concerns while also generating new roles

According to Denis Machuel, the CEO of Adecco, the largest temporary staffing agency globally, while artificial intelligence poses significant job concerns, it will also give rise to new job opportunities. Various professions, including meteorologists, lawyers, and screenwriters, could witness a transformation in their roles due to the emergence of generative AI like ChatGPT, a chatbot capable of creating content. Machuel believes that alongside these changes, new positions will also be created.

– How does artificial intelligence disrupt working life? –

Machuel: “It’s probably the biggest disruption and revolution we’ve seen in decades. It’s going to be huge. And let’s face it, nobody really knows or can predict exactly what’s going to happen in the next five years.”

“All of this productivity improvement helps people do more, but also destroys some of the jobs that people do. There’s certainly some job creation and some job destruction. We’ve seen that with the Internet and digitalization.

“What we have seen in the past tells us that there is more or less a balance between the two.

“Technology brings a much better understanding of the interaction between people and markets, but it also brings complexity. And that complexity requires more people to deal with it.

“GenAI brings productivity on the one hand, but it also brings more evidence, more data, more ways to look at relationships, products and services. And all of this requires people.”

– Are some jobs more at risk than others? –

Machuel: “It’s probably a little too early to accurately describe the jobs that are essentially at risk. Because we have to look at the missions behind them.

“If you’re just computing information, gathering information and synthesizing it, your job is at risk, whether it’s finance, law or business, because… that’s what GenAI does.

“Probably, white-collar workers will be affected more than employees – at least in the short term.

“In the white-collar area, things related to massive information management are more disrupted than skills related to relationship building, strategic thinking or problem solving.

“However, we know that there are limits.

“Let’s take the example of a lawyer or paralegal: GenAI can calculate a huge number of legal decisions.

“However, the deep and subtle understanding of a complex legal situation and the problem-solving skills needed to bring things together are still very human.

“Typically, the mundane tasks that can be automated aren’t the most exciting for people to do. So if you can automate that, you have more time to focus on nicer things.”

– How is artificial intelligence used at Adecco? –

“We have signed a partnership with Microsoft to create a careers platform that will guide companies and workers on their path and support them in thinking about what skills and jobs they could apply for.

“Opening the doors to things that people didn’t necessarily imagine, but that might be within their reach.

“There are quite a lot of employees whose skills are transferable.

“The good news about GenAI is that the opportunities for improvement and reskilling with these tools have exploded.

“We’ve created a resume builder with an AI-based tool that helps people create their own CV.

“Among the daily tasks of our recruiter, I mentioned this chatbot that interacts with thousands of candidates very quickly.

“It allows our recruiters to spend more time on relationships, not searching a database.

“This means that the recruiter can spend more time with people than doing mundane tasks.”