The race to develop artificial intelligence (AI) technologies has been dubbed “the new space race”, with countries around the world competing for a position at the forefront of new AI developments. With the adoption of AI by business growing at a compounded annual growth rate of almost 60%, Instant Offices’ Head of Marketing John Williams considers how work life as we know it is set to change.
“Artificial intelligence will probably replace 50% of human jobs within ten years.” – Kai-Fu Lee, former Head of Research for Google, China
Where is AI Investment Growing Fastest?
China and the United States are the biggest AI ecosystems currently leading the way in artificial intelligence investments.
- The US is the global market leader for AI, with a market share of 40%. It’s the country with the most AI businesses (over 1000 AI companies and $10 billion in venture capital).
- China is the world’s second-largest AI ecosystem. China plans to invest at least $7 billion in AI by 2030, with $2 billion allocated to a research park in Beijing. Around 11% of all AI companies are based in China.
- Israel is third in the world for AI solutions, with a market share of 11%.
- The United Kingdom is currently the AI leader in Europe, with a market share of 7%.
Thanks to their ambitious growth strategy and large amounts of funding, China could feasibly overtake its American rival in the AI race in the future.
Common Office Tasks Making Way for AI
With the first wave of AI and machine learning (ML) in the workplace underway, we’ve started to see more automation in the service and manual labour industry. This includes:
- Low-skill fast food services (e.g. with the addition of self-service kiosks)
- Retail services (e.g. with AI sales assistants)
- Agriculture (e.g. using ML algorithms to monitor soil health, or autonomous robots for manual tasks)
- Warehousing (e.g. using ML algorithms to simplify data collection and improve output – or even fully automating a warehouse, like com in Shanghai)
But AI applications aren’t limited to blue collar work. The second wave of AI in the next ten years will be more focused on white collar jobs, starting with repetitive office tasks. Filing, indexing, document preparation and clerical tasks will become increasingly automated. Advanced AI in the next 30 to 40 years will start to significantly impact higher-skill jobs.
AI is already being used in a number of high-skill white collar professions to automate and improve time-consuming tasks.
- Legal: Law firms are using AI to find and review important information and documents.
- Human Resources: More firms are using AI for recruitment purposes.
- Customer Service: Instead of human customer service providers, intelligent bots are being used to have online conversations with customers and answer their questions.
- Medicine: AI is being used to diagnose patients.
Future Trends for AI in the Office
As AI becomes more widespread (and more intelligent), tech trend-watchers are predicting which occupations will be hit the hardest.
HubSpot lists the following white-collar occupations among the most likely to be taken over by AI in the future:
- Telemarketing (99% likelihood)
- Bookkeeping (98% likelihood)
- Reception (96% likelihood)
- Proofreading (84% likelihood)
- IT support (65% likelihood)
Legal and medical professions will also be highly impacted by AI. Beyond the office, we’ll likely also see transport, performing arts and even culinary services changing drastically as machine-based intelligence starts operating on a more sophisticated level.
The world’s largest AI hubs – namely Silicon Valley, London, Tel Aviv, New York and Beijing – are most likely to see changes in the white-collar workplace as AI investment progresses. Put your tech company at the heart of the AI revolution, with flexible office space in the world’s most connected cities.
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