The rhetoric around AI in the workplace can be vague: Automation, algorithms, productivity, efficiency, decision-making, up-skilling, the list goes on.
Between rapid technological progress and the lag of adoption, there’s continued uncertainty about how AI will reshape the future of work.
Many employees are anxious about their value, for instance. Executives are at once captivated by the potential for profits and worried about keeping up with their competitors. Investors and company boards are frustrated by the losses they’ve already incurred from not moving fast enough.
Consulting firms are often at the heart of it all. From the outset, at least, they’ve positioned themselves as the go-to experts to help corporations understand and navigate this latest wave of technology.
Yet their work can often be as unclear as the technology itself. To demystify it, Business Insider spoke to EY’s new chief technology officer for its Americas Consulting division on what AI really means for workers in 2025.
First off, are people losing jobs anytime soon?
There have been comments about cataclysmic unemployment rates that are gonna plunge us into the next Great Depression. I mean, I think it’s interesting to think about those alternatives. It’s just not what I’m seeing.
Broadly speaking, what can we expect to see from AI integration in the next year?
I think over the next year, you’re going to see an increasing uptake in these copilots, these tools like the ChatGPTs and the private and public models, and interjecting some AI capability into existing enterprise applications, and increasing productivity and efficiency.
How is EY specifically helping clients integrate AI this year?
We’re thinking a lot about what we’re calling the next generation of enterprise applications — interfaces that present people with what they need based on their role, offer key AI insights, and let them act. The AI agents generate suggestions, and the human validates and approves.
We’re piloting this now with some major clients, and it’s been an incredible success. That’s how we’re thinking about the convergence of digital and human workforces — not just managing them together, but creating systems where AI augments people in a seamless way.
Can you provide an example of these applications in action?
If I’m a cruise director on a cruise ship, there are lots of things that impact how my guests enjoy the ship.
The makeup of the people on the ship, the weather, what day — if you’re on a day at sea, or if you’re going to a port — all of that stuff. There’s data to be found there on what happens and how the guests behave. I mean like their buying activities, where they like to hang out, those types of things.
So, we can harness that information with AI agents to actually understand and predict what’s going to happen. We know, for example, that tomorrow’s weather is going to be bad, and it’s a day at sea. We know historically how all of that affects the movement of people and the consumption of products, whether that be merchandise, food, or beverages.
So, we recommend that you take half of the people from this venue and move them to this venue. We recommend moving around products so you don’t run out, because we know what demand is going to look like. We recommend redeploying people to do different things in anticipation of this. The AI will turn around and list out and build out that process automatically.
The human in the loop says, “Okay, that makes sense,” or “I want to change this piece.”
This is through a very visual, nice interface. They click go, and then there’s a chain of orchestration that happens, in which people are notified, leadership is notified, supply chain changes on the ship.
What’s the value of up-skilling here? How much do employees need to learn about AI?
They just know that they have a screen and an application that says, “Here’s how much stuff you have now of this,” and “Here’s how many you have coming inbound,” maybe. They don’t need to know how the technology works. This idea of up-skilling the entire workforce to use AI — I think it’s kind of silly.
How are you helping companies think through questions like this?
You need to look at the functions — rethink that. That also dovetails into the people part, right? You’re not only just giving them technology that’s AI-enabled, you’re allowing them to start to rethink how they do their job, and how they can be more efficient at the job, and also provide more overall value and capability.
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