More than eight out of ten Belgian employers believe that they will always need as many workers as they do today, even though artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly important role in the workplace, a study carried out by HR services company Acerta among a panel of 250 companies reported on Thursday.
Acerta asked these companies in June 2023 about the impact of artificial intelligence in the workplace, whether it be Chat GPT or other AI-enabled tools.
The results show that a majority of companies (82%) believe they will need the same number of staff if AI takes hold in the workplace. Only 14% expect that these technologies will lead them to reduce their workforce and 4% even believe that this will lead to a workforce commitment.
While he is pleased to see that AI is not seen as a threat by Belgian businesses, Director of Acerta Consult, Benoit Caufrier, points out that this technology will disrupt many professions in the future: "Even if AI has little or no influence on the number of workers, it will still affect their role within the organisation in the near future."
According to the same survey, half of employers believe that their staff need training in AI, but 56% of them also say that they have not yet considered training their workers in this technology.
