2.2 Expected impact of technology adoption on business transformation and employment The Fourth Industrial Revolution has accelerated Relative adoption of technologies the pace of adoption of technologies and shifted the frontier between humans and machines across sectors and geographies. Technology is altering Future of Jobs Survey results highlight expected the way we work, but also changing job content, future trends in technology adoption across skills in need, and which jobs are being displaced.43 industries. Figure 2.4 presents the technologies Understanding how technologies will impact labour according to companies’ likelihood to adopt them markets is crucial for determining whether people by 2027. As in previous years, big data, cloud will be able to transition from declining occupations computing and AI feature near the top of this list, 44 to the jobs of tomorrow. with approximately 75% of companies looking to FIGURE 2.4 Technology adoption, 2023-2027 Technologies ranked by the share of organizations surveyed who are likely or highly likely to adopt this technology over the next 5 years Digital platforms and apps 86.4% Education and workforce development technologies 80.9% Big-data analytics 80.0% Internet of things and connected devices 76.8% Cloud computing 76.6% Encryption and cybersecurity 75.6% E-commerce and digital trade 75.3% Artificial intelligence 74.9% Environmental management technologies 64.5% Climate-change mitigation technology 62.8% Text, image, and voice processing 61.8% Augmented and virtual reality 59.1% Power storage and generation 52.1% Electric and autonomous vehicles 51.5% Robots, non-humanoid 51.3% 0 20 40 60 80 100 Share of respondents (%) Source World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Survey 2023. adopt these technologies in the next five years. employment. Figure 2.5 shows that all but The data also shows the impact of the digitalization two technologies are expected to be net job of commerce and trade, with platforms and creators in the next five years. Big data analytics, apps likely to be adopted by 86% of companies climate change and environmental management and e-commerce and digital trade likely to be technologies, and encryption and cybersecurity adopted by 75% of businesses. The second- are expected to be the biggest drivers of job ranked technology is education and workforce growth. Agriculture technologies, digital platforms technologies, with 81% of companies looking to and apps, e-commerce and digital trade, and adopt this technology by 2027. AI are all expected to result in significant labour- market disruption, with substantial proportions of companies forecasting job displacement in their Expected impact of technology organizations, offset by job growth elsewhere to adoption on jobs result in a net positive. Generative AI has received particular attention recently, with claims that 19% of the workforce could have over 50% of their 45 The Future of Jobs Survey also probes the tasks automated by AI and job losses making expected impact of technology adoption on headlines, while others expect the technology to Future of Jobs Report 2023 24