AI Appreciation Day: AI will automate tasks, freeing up people to do more impactful work, says Accenture

On this Global AI Appreciation Day, Accenture highlights the transformative nature of AI, not as a replacement for human work, but as a powerful tool that empowers individuals to excel in their chosen fields and drive positive change. According to Gopali Contractor, Global Lead - Advanced AI and ML Capability, Accenture &Lead - AI Practice for Cloud First, Advanced Technology Centers in India, Accenture, the rise of AI brings with it the promise of automating routine and mundane tasks, ultimately freeing up individuals to focus on more impactful and meaningful work. As artificial intelligence continues to advance, it has the potential to take over repetitive tasks, allowing employees to redirect their time and energy towards strategic thinking, problem-solving, and creative endeavors. By offloading these mundane tasks to AI systems, individuals can leverage their unique human skills, such as critical thinking, empathy, and innovation, to drive value and make a significant impact in their respective roles.

“Over the next decade, AI will be a mega-trend, driving both growth and efficiency across industries, enterprises, how we design and manufacture products and how we work. Generative AI expands AI’s transformative capabilities to unlock new dimensions of creativity and will accelerate the adoption of AI. Increasingly, AI will play the role of a ‘co-pilot’ to most workers. Accenture research estimates that as much as 40% of all working hours will be supported or augmented by language-based AI. That does not mean 40% of jobs will be eliminated. Instead, certain tasks will be automated, freeing people up to do more impactful, higher value work. Similarly, some tasks will be assisted by AI, and some will remain unaffected. We can also expect a large number of new tasks for people to perform, such as ensuring the accurate and responsible use of generative AI systems,” opines Gopali Contractor.

In June, Accenture announced a global investment of USD 3 billion in its Data and AI practice to help clients across 19 industries rapidly and responsibly use AI to achieve greater growth, efficiency and resilience. “Enterprises will fine-tune AI models to reinvent the way work is done across functions – advising, creating, coding, automating, and protecting. For example, AI-powered chatbots can provide hyper-personalized intelligence to workers in roles such as customer support, human resources, sales enablement, and medical and scientific research. Similarly, generative AI will support creative professionals and software coders to expedite processes and drive innovation. In time, generative AI will support enterprise governance and information security, protecting against fraud, improving regulatory compliance, and proactively identifying risk,” adds Gopali.

She further commented that organisations will need to skill their people to do two distinct things: create AI and use AI. “This means building technology skills in AI engineering and enterprise architecture, generative AI, foundation models, responsible AI frameworks, and training people across the organization to work effectively and responsibly with AI-infused processes,” she said.