One feature of the ongoing debates around Generative AI is that almost everything seems to be contested. While the big tech companies are ever bullish about the prospects for their new applications, controversy continues about the wider societal impact of these tools, including on education and employment.

Despite the initial concerns of the impact of Generative AI on employment, it seems that fears were overblown although this may now be changing. Even so, replacement of staff by AI may depend not just on sectors and occupations but on the organisation and size of companies. Of course, the motivation of companies to invest in AI is to increase profits. And it may be that the scale of organisational and work flow change required to introduce more AI has led to smaller companies holding back. This is especially so given ongoing doubts about the reliability of Generative AI applications. However, there are signs of increased use of AI in the software industry, boosting the speed for developing code and applications, resulting in higher productivity. Meta’s CEO Zuckerberg recently said that Meta and other tech companies are working on developing AI systems that are able to do complex coding with minimum human interactions. He went on to say that AI will replace mid-level engineers at Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp by 2025. There is little doubt that creative jobs in the media film and advertising industries are coming under pressure with the increasing adoption of AI. The World Economic Forum (WEF) recently released its Future of Jobs Report 2025, including the finding that 40 percent of companies plan workforce reductions due to AI automation. But the report also finds that AI could create 170 million new jobs globally while eliminating 92 million positions, resulting in a net increase of 78 million jobs by 2030. Of course the key word here is “could”.

There are two new developments which are worrying for future jobs. The first is AI agents. These are designed to split up work tasks and undertake the tasks semi autonomously. But for all the hype it remains to be seen how effective such agents might be. And the second is the increasing use of AI for training robots. Robots have previously been difficult and expensive to train. AI may substantially reduce the cost of training, leading to a new wave of automation in many industries.

But all this is speculation and finding reliable research remains a challenge. From an education and training perspective, it seems to point to the importance of AI literacy as an extension of digital literacy and the need to ramp up continuing training for employees whose work is changing as a result of AI. Interestingly the WEF report found that 77 percent of surveyed firms will launch retraining programmes to help current workers collaborate with AI systems between 2025 and 2030.