Dive Brief:
- The rise of generative AI tools will more deeply transform tech jobs more than other sectors, according to an Indeed analysis published Tuesday. The job site's Hiring Lab analyzed more than 2,800 skills for the report to identify what skills would be most and least affected by generative AI adoption.
- More than half of the skills that comprise technology roles will undergo deeper transformation, according to Indeed. Nearly 3 in 5 of the job skills that could potentially be fully transformed are related to technology.
- Despite the possible upheaval to technology roles, Indeed cautions that widescale job replacement is not yet in the picture. It found that less than 1% of skills are rated as likely to be replaced by generative AI.
Dive Insight:
The influx of generative AI skills is shifting how IT departments operate. Although specific tasks are headed toward automation, IT workers remain essential to organizations.
"A job is made up of skills, and often multiple skills," Cory Stahle, senior economist at Indeed's Hiring Lab, told CIO Dive. "Tech jobs have more of the skills that have potential to be transformed, but many skills have at least some human element to them that is not going to be able to be replaced by generative AI."
AI's ability to take over repeatable, rules-based processes helps explain why most high-impact tasks are technology related. Skills mentioned in 82% of software development job postings are among those facing deeper change, according to Indeed.
"There are set-in-stone syntax requirements when you talk about coding," said Stahle. "The skills where you're processing structured data or you're doing something in a very structured way, generative AI is pretty good at doing that."
Software development teams have been plugging AI into processes for several years as AI's coding chops have improved and vendors have widened their offerings. AI has gained ground in code reviews, prototyping and other repeatable tasks in software development.
Executives are spurring adoption across the enterprise, lured by the potential for improvements to productivity and revenue. But concerns about the accuracy of outputs and the potential effects on career development are weighing down efforts.
As deployments progress, executives should not discount the value of human skills within their ranks, Stahle said.
"The focus of using AI should be to solve problems and to make better products and services for people," Stahle said. "Not to use AI for the sake of using AI."
