If you’ve kept up with the news over the past few days, you’re likely to have come across news of Nvidia’s record-breaking Q4 revenue report touting a 265% increase from a year ago.
Nvidia is quickly becoming a household name as the AI boom continues, specializing in making chips that power various platforms like Google Gemini, ChatGPT, and games and cars.
Generative AI is also quickly becoming the hottest topic surrounding the future of the world and the future of work. According to Nvidia CEO Jason Hwang, the demand for GenAI tools is rapidly increasing across different industries and even entire nations. Marking a tipping point in the AI market, contrary to previous reports that suggested we had already reached its peak.
How GenAI is Already Shaping the Future of Work
As we’ve already seen over the past few years, AI has come a long way from what seemed like a pipe dream to quickly become one of the most useful tools for speeding up the repetitive tasks that take up a lot of time for knowledge workers.
According to research from LinkedIn published toward the end of 2023, more than 74% of US-based executives believe that Generative AI will help their employees. Overall, senior executives up to the C-suite are “mostly optimistic that the technology will provide productivity and revenue-enhancing benefits, even if it’s unclear how”, with 51% stating they are excited about using AI and 47% believing it will improve productivity.
Human Implications of AI on the Future of Work
Most interestingly, many of the conversations around AI in the workplace started from a place of fear regarding potential job loss. But what has been most promising is that regardless of the changes in how smaller tasks get accomplished, more than 92% of leaders still believe that soft skills are more important than ever, according to the same LinkedIn Future of Work Report.
Furthermore, McKinsey’s 2023 report on Generative AI and the Future of Work supports the long-held belief that technological innovation will spur economic and employment growth across sectors and the global economy. By 2030, up to 30% of all current work hours could be automated, according to their research. While this initially may cause some to harken back to the conversation surrounding job stability, the greater trend appears to be that more tedious or time-consuming tasks can be automated while those doing the work are freed up to work on more complicated or strategic tasks.
The key to generative AI is there in its name: generative. It can consume huge swaths of information and create new pieces of content, but when it comes to original ideas, it is still us humans who hold the keys to true creativity and innovation.
How You Can Jumpstart Your AI Journey
Most knowledge workers will tell you that there isn’t enough uninterrupted focus time in their work day. Microsoft’s latest Work Trends report backs this up further revealing that 68% of workers feel this way, burdened by how much time they spend in meetings, email, and on other forms of communicating. The potential to use AI to lessen this burden is one of the most exciting outcomes for many knowledge workers: “Employees are more eager for AI to lift the weight of work than they are afraid of job loss to AI”, according to the same Microsoft report.
There are a variety of tools already available to help lessen these burdens. AI meeting note-takers like Fireflies can make it easier for employees to decline invitations to big meetings in favor of focusing on other work if they do not need to be active participants. Reading the AI-generated summary during a designated time to catch up on communications means employees can have more control of their workday and dedicate more of their workday to deep focus.
In a similar vein, Microsoft users can now employ Copilot to help them across the Microsoft Office suite with similar tasks that lessen the mental burden on the employees themselves. In Outlook this could mean having Copilot create a first draft of a lengthy email or summarize long threads. What’s exciting is never having to start from zero if you don’t want to!
For roles that require creativity, such as marketing or content creation, Copilot can suggest ideas, create drafts, or even generate entire articles, presentations, and marketing materials that aid in brainstorming and accelerate the creative process. The use cases for generative AI are endless if you know how to use it, so adopt it as a supportive tool to boost productivity.
The sheer number of future AI trends we can expect to see keeps growing, and Nvidia and Microsoft’s AI technology is sure to remain a pivotal part of these conversations as many more organizations continue to adopt AI at scale.
To stay competitive, organizations should adopt both generative AI tools and productivity tools to streamline knowledge-worker workflows. Several excellent tools like Frameable Core can enhance daily collaboration and communication in Microsoft Teams for your workforce. By leveraging the power of next-level collaboration, you can accelerate the growth of your organization.