As AI companies expand in appreciation and use, there is constant debate about how AI is replacing humans in various jobs. Studies suggest that roles where AI can automate most tasks will be affected, although some analysts believe that AI may also create jobs, with the displacement effect only temporary.
David Shim, CEO of notepad and news services company Read AI, told TechCrunch at Web Summit Qatar earlier this month that despite the rise of AI tools, ultimately, people will decide the way forward and their work will be important. He compared the technology to using maps in a car.
“I think there’s always going to be a person in the middle,” Shim said. “I think the job will get easier over time. But a good example would be driving a car. When we started, you had a map. And you pulled out a map. And you went in and said okay, I’m driving. I decide what happens. Now everyone uses Waze or Google Maps and the map tells you where to go. And you drive based on who can decide what’s going on.”
Acknowledging that AI will affect jobs, Shim noted that advertising agencies may lose human roles to automated tools. But he noted that technology platforms will need jobs to oversee the automation process.
Abdullah Asiri, founder of AI-enabled consumer support tools startup Lucidya, said he believes AI will replace tasks, but not roles. He said that when his company’s clients use Lucidya, customer support agents often take on different roles and responsibilities. He noted that some become supervisors, guiding other humans and AI, while others take responsibility for relationship building and business development, using the time saved.
Read AI’s Shim noted that meeting note takers have freed people from taking notes by hand.
“No one wants to sit here and take notes from meetings, but when you start taking that job, you have a little more time for other things to focus on. You can send that message a little faster, or you can respond to the customer and have a better context to make a better decision, rather than spending a lot of time gathering all the information and not having a lot of time to make a decision,” he said.
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Internal use and hiring of AI
As tech companies like Read AI and Lucidya increasingly use AI tools, they want to keep their teams lean. Currently, Read AI’s customer service team consists of just five people serving millions of users per month. Shim noted that the company is using artificial intelligence tools to make the small team more productive and give them more context to help them do their work faster.
Companies are said to reap productivity gains. Read AI said its sales tool helps predict the state of a deal using data from CRM systems such as HubSpot and Salesforce. The startup said $200 million worth of deals have been approved through the system. Shim said Read AI captures 23% more context with each update, which can be used to evaluate what worked or what didn’t in the initial call.
Lucidya’s Asiri also noted that the company uses AI tools, including Read AI, for meeting and creating marketing assets. He said the company wants to “scale results without scaling headcount.”
“Every company’s goal is to hire people who are AI-native, who are very strong in AI, but we have to be realistic,” Asiri said. “Today, that skill is developing. You can’t find many people who have very strong AI capabilities who don’t create AI, but use it.”
Asiri noted that people who would be able to build agents who can help them do their jobs would be desirable to hire.
Managing how customers perceive AI
Shim noted that just a few years ago, many people were hesitant to have AI notebooks in meetings and didn’t understand why a robot was on the call. But now people are more receptive to recorders if you give them control over the recording, he said.
Asiri said Lucidya tells users when it uses voice AI to communicate. He said that solving problems is more important to users than having an AI bot handle their calls.
“It’s all about solving problems and finding customer problems and solving them,” Asiri said. “As long as the AI agents really focus on that part, customers are happy to have their problems solved. The customer really doesn’t care if it’s fixed by an AI or a human, as long as it’s fixed quickly and accurately.”