Will AI really replace your job?

“I talk to a lot of CEOs, and I quickly learned that they don’t think AI has taken over—I can say that with absolute authority,” said Ronnie Sheth, CEO of SENEN GROUP, of Austin, Texas. the bread-and-butter strategy consulting firm helps companies unlock and integrate AI into their operations. Shethi spoke to him Good luck about the risks and potential of AI use during a discussion at London Tech Week earlier this month.

Fears and speculations of AI taking over jobs have permeated every industry. Amazon recently laid off more than 100 customer service employees, For Fortune Jason Del Rey reported, part of their ongoing effort to cut costs and invest in automation. New reports from New York Times and Citigroup are both warning banks and financiers about their risk of being replaced, and last month, Sinovation Ventures CEO Kai-Fu Lee said he expects AI to replace 50% of human jobs in the next decade.

But senior executives can remain vigilant, Sheth said. Name checked a large construction firm that is a client of SENEN. “I just talked to their CEO—obviously, as a construction leader—who is thinking about robots, and AI algorithms that can be used to do some of the menial jobs.” He said the manager was not sold. “Many employees have been asking him if AI will disrupt their jobs. He said to them: No, but it will increase your safety. That’s how CEOs think differently about this. And that’s the right way to think about it.”

Perhaps that is cold comfort to CEOs who are beginning to fear about their use, and whether they might one day be replaced. Sheth isn’t worried about that, either—at least not about successful leaders.

“As CEO, my job is to do a few things,” said Sheth. “Control the culture. Lead the company on a path to transparency. To drive sustainable growth. It’s really improving the community I’m in.”

Sheth said that many CEOs are more concerned with the human aspects of the business, such as branding and connecting with customers, rather than cold numbers.

His clients—which range from Fortune 500 companies like Nike and IBM to startups and NGOs—have been willing to forgo their short-term capital and growth goals to invest in sustainable, effective product expansion.

“I won’t name names, but there are some very large stores that we have worked with, that have entered into interesting times, because they decided to jump into AI and forget about their brand,” Sheth. said. “It’s not a smart idea. They have to go back to branding.”

Theory of change

In the short term, none of the jobs will be “effectively replaced,” Sheth predicted. But if we think 10, 15, 20 years down the line—maybe line jobs? Maybe a little maintenance, maybe just a little bit of basic sales jobs, data entry administrative work. ”

Of course, he said, those can be changed or outsourced, but that does not mean that the people who have been doing those jobs will be left without other options. “I think there’s a balance between reducing staff and putting policies in place to ensure that AI is used to help people, not take people’s lives.”

It’s up to business leaders—and even government officials in the public sector, Sheth said—to figure out how to mitigate AI’s impact on working professionals. Moving forward: “I don’t believe that a company that says it wants to be AI-centric or data-driven is on the right track,” Sheth said. “You are not value-driven, and you are not value-centric. You are what you focus on.”

Data risks to people

Using years of projects done by Sheth’s company with large firms, he said he noticed that “companies come to me and say, we want to do more with data. We want to be data-driven, we want to be data-centric—they’re the companies that are set up to fail.”

That failure stems from being single-minded—focusing on numbers rather than people. “On the smaller side, companies that say, ‘we have all this data, now how do we unlock value for the business, for our customers, for our employees, for our community?’ It’s a different concept.”

The difference between the two, he said, is the pursuit of an answer in being data-centric, versus the value of opening up to individuals. “As business leaders, we really need to start focusing on making sure that policy and regulations are very, very clear on human-centeredness and we need to make sure that AI doesn’t stifle human innovation,” Sheth said. “Right now, we’re seeing a lot of fear-based regulations, and fear-based policy making. I really want new ones to emerge, without compromising the value of the person.”