- Box reveals that 2 in 3 IT leaders expect their workforce to increase over the next three years as AI evolves.
- New roles – such as agent operators and automation specialists – will emerge
- Almost all ITDM officials admit that stronger governance would be useful
New research from Box reveals that two in three UK IT decision-makers (65%) expect their overall workforce to increase over the next three years, not decrease.
In fact, only 14% think the workforce will shrink, with the consensus generally leaning toward AI creating new jobs and not replacing human workers.
This shift in narrative comes at an important time for AI as it evolves from experimentation to real-world deployment.
AI creates new roles, without removing them completely
Box believes that we are now entering the era of the “agentic enterprise” in which AI agents are integrated into daily workflows and have organization-wide knowledge and context. But even as they become more sophisticated and efficient, the impacts on human workers should be positive.
Of all companies using or testing AI agents, only 8% say they have now led to job losses.
Among the positions most likely to be created are AI agent operators within IT teams: almost half (48%) of all organizations are hiring for this role. Workflow automation specialists (32%), security, risk and compliance professionals (31%), change management and AI enablement roles (31%), and AI ethics and governance specialists (26%) also represent crucial opportunities for human workers.
“As organizations embark on the next phase of AI, the focus is increasingly shifting from individual productivity gains to transforming how work gets done,” commented Samantha Wessels, President, EMEA.
Although only about one in three companies are hiring security professionals, opportunities could still grow as nearly one in two companies (45%) experience an AI-related data exposure incident.
Rather than defining opportunities as capped, with humans or AI helping to achieve goals, Box proposes a higher ceiling where AI and humans can work together to push goals even further. Most IT leaders (94%) now believe that better governance would help them adopt agentic AI more quickly.
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