Whenever I meet HR leaders to discuss challenges and share solutions, the conversation inevitably lands on two major topics:
- How can we harness AI in HR to accelerate growth?
- How can we ensure our people have the right skills to help them—and our organizations—thrive in the future?
More often than not, these two complex issues come up together because the solutions around AI and skills are so intertwined.
AI has already been reshaping the workforce for years. Then, last year, generative AI (GenAI) adoption accelerated and started changing the way we did our daily work. Almost every role has some tasks that are repetitive or manual, and this is where GenAI shines. With the right approach, GenAI personalizes experiences and helps people focus more on the strategic, innovative, and creative work that’s fundamentally human, rather than the mundane.
We also know that there are real concerns about AI adoption. That’s why we need to listen to our people, recognize the humanity of our workforce, and show how AI can create new opportunities for them.
The skills conversation has followed a similar arc. For decades, HR leaders have worried they couldn’t identify, find, and develop people with the skills to lead their businesses. But all too often, that conversation ended in frustration because the technology didn’t exist to fulfill our needs. Organizations might have been sitting on a treasure trove of people with amazing skills, but they didn’t have the maps to find them.
Today, however, we’re at an inflection point. I see optimism among HR leaders because AI and other emerging technologies are giving us new maps to do just that.
That’s one reason why ServiceNow partnered with Pearson last year to better understand the landscape, zeroing in on which tech skills are most needed for the workforce of the future. The results were eye-opening.
This year we ran the research again—using an AI-driven algorithm that digs into publicly available data in the U.S., UK, Canada, Germany, India, Australia, Japan, and Singapore—this time with an even deeper dive into the impact AI will have on the jobs and skills of tomorrow.
The research notes the ongoing importance of IT roles, projecting the need for an additional 1.76 million new tech workers by 2028 in the U.S. alone. The study also found an upward trend in global workforce growth, the highest being in India, where an additional 34 million people will be needed to sustain a projected GDP growth of 6.3% annually over the next five years.
AI and emerging technologies will take some of the pressure off people by helping them complete tasks more efficiently, doing the hourly work equivalent of 4.46 million U.S. workers by 2028.
Not all industries will feel the same impact. For example, we know that the retail industry is full of tasks that can be automated, so the workforce in retail will likely shrink as a result. But for every net loss, the data shows additional jobs will be created in other industries—enough to balance out the loss of jobs more vulnerable to automation. The key will be to create programs that will help reskill people to make the leap from one industry to another.
Beyond understanding how AI adoption will change the makeup of the workforce, we also set out to understand, on a granular level, exactly how much time AI and GenAI will save individual workers by role. For example, we know that systems administrators within the ServiceNow ecosystem will save 13.7 hours per week, on average, due to automation and capacity gain. That’s an extra day and a half to focus on reskilling or work that requires a human touch, rather than rote tasks.
Last year’s research concluded that the more we use machines to do the work they’re good at, the less humans must work like machines. By reallocating work best done by AI and other technologies, people can focus on more purpose-driven, meaningful tasks that require problem-solving, interpersonal communication, and creativity.
But to achieve this vision—and to support healthy economic growth—businesses and governments must create learning and development programs that proactively prepare today’s workforce for tomorrow. This can only be done by identifying which skills are on the wane and which are on the rise, in the IT industry and beyond.
This is why initiatives such as RiseUp with ServiceNow that address evolving talent and skilling needs are so vitally important. By identifying and supporting people whose jobs are more likely to be automated, organizations can support a new generation of high-value, highly trained employees.
Find out how ServiceNow can help your organization develop talent with AI skills.
