IBM and disruptive technology

The term disruptive technology was coined in 1995 by Clayton Christensen from Harvard Business School to refer to any innovation that significantly alters the way that consumers, industries, or businesses operate. Examples might be the arrival of the PC or the smartphone. People and businesses just do things differently now from how they used to.

Currently, there are two technologies that look like they are going to be disruptive. The first is quantum computing, and the second is artificial intelligence (AI). Quantum computing’s disruptive effects are still a little way in the future, but AI is already here, and many people have already used ChatGPT or Gemini (Bard).

Humans are somewhat strange in that most people would like some things in their life and in the world to be different, while at the same time most people are very reluctant to change themselves and their way of doing things! And like any disruptive technology, people can predict that the changes caused by AI being used for good – AI is great at reading medical scans and identifying potential cancerous growths etc – and for evil – something along the lines of the Terminator movies.

Every now and again, you’re perhaps looking through the channels available on your TV and you come across a programme that you used to enjoy many years ago. Looking at it now, perhaps 30 or more years later, you find yourself amazed that no-one has a laptop or tablet, they don’t google anything, no-one has a Satnav to find where they’re going, and, strangest of all, no-one has a phone in their pocket to contact anyone, or browse social media, or pay for anything. Well, I predict that’s what current TV programmes are going to look like twenty years from now – no-one has a personal AI to give them information, to write reports, to do a million other things that it’s impossible to predict until someone invents them and lots of people use them.

However, anything that can be used for good can also be used by bad actors. How many movies have mobile phones being used to trigger explosives that could kill people and damage buildings etc. And that’s kind of where we are with AI. It could be used to hack mainframes. It could be used to take control of the electricity grid by a hostile nation. It could be used to attack hospitals, financial institutions, security services, etc etc. And it could do some people’s jobs, and that means there will be big changes in the workforce.

It’s that last reason that has led to the formation of a consortium focused on upskilling and reskilling roles most likely to be impacted by AI. The AI-Enabled Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Workforce Consortium includes IBM as well as Accenture, Cisco, Eightfold, Google, Indeed, Intel, Microsoft, and SAP. There are also six advisors.

The consortium has a goal of exploring AI’s impact on IT job roles, enabling workers to find and access relevant training programs, and connecting businesses to skilled and job-ready workers. It is evaluating how AI is changing the jobs and skills workers need to be successful. The first phase of work will produce a report with actionable insights for business leaders and workers. These should offer practical insights and recommendations to employers looking for ways to reskill and upskill their workers in preparation for AI-enabled environments.

The Consortium’s work is inspired by the US-EU Trade and Technology Council’s (TTC’s) Talent for Growth Task Force and Cisco Chair and CEO Chuck Robbins’ leadership of its skills training workstream, and input from the US Department of Commerce.

Looking at that first phase of work in more detail, the Consortium will evaluate the impact of AI on 56 IT job roles and provide training recommendations for impacted jobs. These job roles include 80% of the top 45 IT job titles that had the highest volume of job postings for the period February 2023-2024 in the USA and five of the largest European countries by IT workforce numbers (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands) according to Indeed Hiring Lab. Collectively, these countries account for a significant segment of the IT sector, with a combined total of 10 million IT workers.

Consortium member goals include:

• Cisco to train 25 million people with cybersecurity and digital skills by 2032.
• IBM to skill 30 million individuals by 2030 in digital skills, including 2 million in AI.
• Intel to empower more than 30 million people with AI skills for current and future jobs by 2030.
• Microsoft to train and certify 10 million people from underserved communities with in-demand digital skills for jobs and livelihood opportunities in the digital economy by 2025.
•   SAP to upskill two million people worldwide by 2025.
• Google has recently announced €25 million in funding to support AI training and skills for people across Europe.

As I said earlier, the world in twenty years’ time will look completely different in many ways from now. It’s refreshing to see some of the higher profile companies taking steps to prepare the workforce for the changes taking place.