Chief Executive Officers of various companies in West Africa have revealed that artificial intelligence will generally impact headcount in 2024.
According to the PwC Annual Global CEO Survey report for West Africa, out of every four of the 4,702 executives surveyed 5 per cent or more have planned to reduce headcount in 2024 due to generative AI.
“This suggests many leaders see technology primarily as a way to accomplish the same tasks with fewer workers,” it said.
The report also reveals that the reduction in headcount reflects that 60 per cent of CEOs now use generative AI to reduce routine tasks in the organisation.
“Everything from decision-making, meetings to emails—viewing roughly 40 percent of the time spent on these tasks as inefficient.”
Confirming this, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that AI will affect nearly 40 per cent of all jobs.
According to the report, the potential impact of AI on the global labour market indicates that jobs will be replaced by it. However, in many cases, AI is likely to complement human work.
Kristalina Georgieva, IMF’s managing director said “In most scenarios, AI will likely worsen overall inequality.”
Georgieva adds that policymakers should address the “troubling trend” to “prevent the technology from further stoking social tensions.”
However, the PwC report highlighted that CEOs must navigate the tensions between potential risks and the desire to move quickly to seize opportunities.
It said that leading companies are aligning their generative AI strategy with their existing digital and AI strategies, upskilling employees, and encouraging experimentation across their organisations with a focus on identifying use cases that can be scaled up.
‘While there are potential risks with AI and large language models, we believe more in its potential and creating boundaries to mitigate any risk,” Robert Playter, CEO of Boston Dynamics said.
