Breaking Down the Impact of AI on IT Careers

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing IT jobs as we know them, with its ability to process data much faster than human capital. While this may raise fear about AI creating job displacement in the IT sector, AI is enabling employees to focus on higher-level subjects that AI can’t address. This mitigates tedious work, like data entry and basic analysis, that employees are often tied up with, creating more opportunities for high-level and critical thinking roles. Ultimately, AI is transforming the IT industry by creating numerous opportunities for growth and innovation throughout the organization, while also freeing up employees to focus on analytics and decision making.  

Below are considerations on how AI is impacting careers in the IT industry. 

Impact of AI on IT Careers

Job Transformation and Evolving Skills

AI is taking over responsibilities of simple IT tasks by automating repetitive duties and crunching raw data. According to the World Economic Forum, AI will replace an estimated 85 million jobs by 2025. While this may seem scary, it is creating new opportunities along with it. So yes, AI will fulfill the duties of a data entry assistant or customer service representative with its chatbots, but it will also open roles in AI development and supervision. As a result, the job requirements of a typical IT role are transforming, pushing organizations to search for candidates that can analyze AI-generated responses or run maintenance and cybersecurity checks on the software. Overall, AI is taking away the tedious and basic roles in IT while creating more opportunities in high-level and critical thinking roles. 

Productivity and Cost Effectiveness

As stated earlier, AI is now completing the long and repetitive tasks of data crunching and analysis. While historically this job, when carried out by human capital, may have taken days or weeks to complete depending on the data set, AI is completing this task instantaneously. Not only is this time effective, but it is also very cost effective as the organization would have to pay a full-time employee to look through rows of data for long periods of time. Now organizations can focus on high-level tasks such as implementing insights from the AI-generated analysis into their practices and processes.   

Compliance and Considerations

With AI, it’s important to remember that there is always a human component that is necessary for this technology to be successful. Human oversight ensures that the technology is producing accurate and unbiased results. As such, IT careers may be moving away from basic data tasks and towards ensuring AI technology isn’t compromising data privacy and is instead producing quality and accurate analysis. In fact, in a research study it showed that out of 555 AI models about 80% showed a high risk of bias, showing us that human oversight and intervention is necessary when using this technology. AI will never completely remove the need for human decision making; the need for employees and organizations to vet the ethical and legal considerations of the software is critical to maintaining a safe and well-working AI software.  

Looking Ahead

The IT industry is constantly evolving, discovering new technologies, like AI, to propel it forward. Organizations and employers need to be adaptable, continuously learning and tweaking their practices to produce the best services. AI is changing so many industries, with IT being a huge sector ripe for technological innovation.  If looking for guidance on how AI is impacting the IT industry and its careers, contact BCTG for expert support.  

Contributions from Leah Harding