By Marcus Lu
Large language models (LLMs) and other generative AI tools haven’t been around for very long, but they’re expected to have far-reaching impacts on the way people do their jobs. With this in mind, researchers have already begun studying the potential impacts of this transformative technology.
In this graphic, we’ve visualized the results of a World Economic Forum report, which estimated how different job departments will be exposed to AI disruption.
Data and Methodology
To identify the job departments most impacted by AI, researchers assessed over 19,000 occupational tasks (e.g. reading documents) to determine if they relied on language. If a task was deemed language-based, it was then determined how much human involvement was needed to complete that task.
With this analysis, researchers were then able to estimate how AI would impact different occupational groups.
| Department | Large impact (%) | Small impact (%) | No impact (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| IT | 73 | 26 | 1 |
| Finance | 70 | 21 | 9 |
| Customer Sales | 67 | 16 | 17 |
| Operations | 65 | 18 | 17 |
| HR | 57 | 41 | 2 |
| Marketing | 56 | 41 | 3 |
| Legal | 46 | 50 | 4 |
| Supply Chain | 43 | 18 | 39 |
In our graphic, large impact refers to tasks that will be fully automated or significantly altered by AI technologies. Small impact refers to tasks that have a lesser potential for disruption.
Where AI will make the biggest impact
Jobs in information technology (IT) and finance have the highest share of tasks expected to be largely impacted by AI.
Within IT, tasks that are expected to be automated include software quality assurance and customer support. On the finance side, researchers believe that AI could be significantly useful for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing.
Still interested in AI? Check out this graphic which ranked the most commonly used AI tools in 2023.
Source: Visual Capitalist
