“A higher level of AI exposure means that AI can more readily be used for some tasks. Examples of occupations with higher AI exposure are financial analysts, customer service agents, software coders, and administration managers,” the report said.

“The analysis revealed that sectors with higher AI exposure are experiencing much higher labour productivity growth. At the same time, the skills demanded by employers in AI-exposed occupations are changing fast.”

Within professional services sectors, including law, the share of job postings requiring AI skills peaked at over 3 per cent in 2021, dropping slightly since then.

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According to the report, 25 per cent of jobs that require specialist AI skills carry up to a 25 per cent wage premium in some markets, with the number of AI specialist jobs 3.5 times faster than all jobs. In the US, data showed a 49 per cent wage premium for lawyers who had AI skills.

In Australia, the findings show an increase in demand for AI skilled workers and an associated wage premium, but not at the same pace as in the US, UK and Canada.

PwC Australia AI leader Tom Pagram said data in Australia shows both an increased demand for AI skilled workers and an associated wage premium but that we need to remain competitive on a global scale.

“For Australia to stay in the race globally, and to maximise local productivity growth, we must continue investing in local AI skills and capability. Australia’s productivity performance has been waning over the past decade, and we are behind most comparable countries. By better harnessing AI in our local economy, we can help to boost productivity growth,” he said.

“More broadly, AI is transforming the global labour market globally, which presents an opportunity, particularly for economies facing labour shortages and low productivity, as AI will continue to play a critical role in economic development, new jobs, and the creation of new industries.”

Global CEOs also anticipate that generative AI will deliver significant top and bottom-line benefits, with 46 per cent saying it will increase profitability and 41 per cent saying it will increase revenue.

PwC’s 2023 Global Investor Survey also revealed that investors believe accelerated adoption of AI is critical to the value equation – 61 per cent of investors said that faster adoption is very or extremely important.

“AI often performs best in partnership with people. Without oversight, AI can miss context and nuance or give poorer quality output. Only humans can fully appreciate and navigate the people, processes, and context of individual organisations and situations,” the report said.

“Our analysis (particularly the finding about AI’s potential impact on productivity) suggests that AI’s effect on jobs may be similar to that of the internal combustion engine in the 20th century, which reduced numbers of some jobs (such as horse trader) while at the same time creating far more jobs than it displaced (from truck driver to road engineer to traffic police).”

As reported by Lawyers Weekly sister brand, Accounting Times, Nick Abrahams, futurist and global leader in digital transformation at Norton Rose Fulbright, said two credible studies have shown that the impact of generative AI alone on knowledge worker productivity ranges between 35 and 50 per cent.

“When steam was introduced during the Industrial Revolution, the increase was only 25 per cent, so we are at an inflection point,” he told the ASIC Annual Forum in November.

“For most of us using Microsoft applications, you’ll have a ChatGPT-style capability within it within a year. Imagine waking up and seeing your inbox in the morning and it’s already read and drafted responses in your voice because it’s read every email you’ve ever written,” he said.

Within the report, PwC UK global workforce leader Peter Brown emphasised that “AI makes human labour more relevant and valuable, opening up new opportunities for people to develop new skills and enter new roles”.

“AI will create new jobs for people that we haven’t yet begun to imagine. Many of the fastest-growing jobs of today – from cloud engineer to digital interface designer – didn’t exist 10 or 20 years ago and have been generated by technology. Like a spreadsheet or a saw, AI is a tool that makes people more powerful and capable. Workers who build the skills to harness AI will be more valuable than ever,” he said in the report.

Moving forward, the report suggests that organisations will need to invest in workforce transformation and upskilling to take advantage of the opportunities, according to PwC’s workforce leader, Norah Seddon.

“Leaders need to ensure they are adequately investing in the skills required for both their people and organisations if they are to thrive in a global economy and a labour market being transformed by AI,” she said.

“Equally, AI represents tremendous opportunities for people, organisations, and economies with expertise in new and emerging technologies. Ensuring a skills-first approach to recruitment and continued investment in workforce upskilling is imperative. No industry or market will remain immune to the impact of new technologies.”

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