There are opportunities within the vital, rapidly expanding care sector to enable and support a workforce suffering severe shortages as artificial intelligence (AI) transforms the nature of employment.
The workplace is evolving. AI’s effect on labor and workers is a topic of constant discussion these days, whether it is in the White House, the World Economic Forum, American union halls, Fortune 100 board rooms, or VC cocktail parties. AI has the potential to change everything, including the way disease is diagnosed and how customer service inquiries are handled. Here, we will forgo the erroneous precision of projecting the precise number of jobs that will be lost and instead concentrate on how we might anticipate and encourage the positive effects of AI on society and workers.
As venture capitalists, we are always searching for big, bold concepts that have the potential to yield enormous profits for our backers. However, we also didn’t enter this field without the core conviction that we can improve upon the current situation and make the future better. That’s not techno-utopianism; rather, it’s an acknowledgment that capital has a lot of levers that we can use to influence the kind of future we desire. if we decide to make use of them. Furthermore, we think there are opportunities in our vital and rapidly expanding care economy sector to empower and assist a workforce that has the worst shortages in the country, even as artificial intelligence continues to transform the nature of employment.
AI and Workplace Futures: What Remains and What Goes?
Large-scale pattern recognition is the core competency of AI. This implies a significant reduction in the amount of administrative and analytical work associated with tasks like note-taking, scheduling, data reconciliation, and summary. Employment in these sectors will indeed decline. However, those that are left might improve in quality and income. Consider a teacher or nurse manager, for instance, who would no longer have to spend 40% of their time creating worksheets and slides or managing a schedule. Rather than relying solely on technology, they can embrace the distinctively human aspects of their work, which call for emotional and contextual analysis and understanding. These soft abilities will be isolated and emphasized by AI in ways that increase their value and possibly lead to increased compensation.
AI also can reduce the entrance requirements for a wide range of vocations, even technical ones. This same scenario has repeatedly been witnessed with other significant technology advancements. Consider how internet mapping and navigation have made it easier to become a black cab driver in London; one no longer needs to spend decades mastering “The Knowledge” of every side street. The workforce will become more fungible now that AI can synthesize massive volumes of knowledge and distribute it when needed, to a worker repairing a downed telephone pole, to a nurse unsure of which needle gauge to use, to a new engineer who can automate her code output.
Workers are more than their technical knowledge, even though this sounds negative for them—cheaper tenure and lower turnover costs. Across all industries and job kinds, soft skills, relationship building, and culture will all remain important. Many of our highly qualified employees are now occupied with numerous workflows that are necessary for their professions but don’t make the greatest use of their training. More seasoned employees with longer tenure may profit from AI’s ability to automate some of the more laborious and repetitive jobs since it will allow them to “practice at the top of their license.”Furthermore, workers might gain a great deal from a more flexible workforce. Upskilling, cross-training, and job switching will all be possible with just-in-time training and a wealth of knowledge that you can access no matter how long you’ve been employed.
The Function of Modern Technology in Healthcare
We are confronting severe labor shortages in several industries that have existed for years and show no signs of abating, even though the majority of the panic around AI and automation is focused on the fear that these technologies will be used to replace workers—a risk that is legitimate in some sectors. However, there has been far less investment in technology that could help employees in the construction, service, education, nursing, or other care sectors than there has been in tools meant to help software developers and free up time for them to concentrate on the more difficult aspects of their jobs. Numerous of these positions are open to innovation, and with careful application of AI, it may be possible to help segments of our labor force that are at their breaking point rather than harming them.
If we don’t solve two critical aspects of the care economy—the severe lack of workers in the care sector and the exodus of family caregiver personnel from other businesses when they are forced to fill the gaps in care—the United States would lose $290 billion annually by 2030, according to BCG.
The care economy may thus provide some of the most intriguing instances of how AI might help both employees and the people they assist. One of the biggest job shortages in the US right now is in the care economy, which employs 17% of the labor force and includes nurses and home health aides. In addition, these occupations frequently pay badly, are emotionally and physically demanding, and have exceptionally high rates of burnout. Approximately 25% of home health aides are impoverished.
By automating processes rather than the job itself, artificial intelligence (AI) and other supporting technologies can improve and make care employment more appealing as a means of increasing supply. Consider burnout in healthcare workers as an example. It may be possible to reduce that effort by two thirds with the help of AI-supported charting, documenting, and staffing firms like Abridge, Guardoc, and In-House Health. To make scheduling, enrollment, and company management more effective for small enterprises in industries like childcare, hospice care, and skilled nursing homes, tech can also create software. This might result in savings for higher compensation. By reducing the amount of time nurses spend on administrative tasks, similar apps can alleviate a severe nursing shortage.
Among all professions in the United States, teachers report the highest levels of burnout. Teachers now spend over half of their time on administrative duties, curriculum creation, lesson planning, and grading instead of with students. For overworked staff members, generative AI solutions such as Brisk Teaching may be a helpful copilot for some of these activities.
Meanwhile, the 40 million Americans who provide unpaid family care for their loved ones can have less work to do as a result of artificial intelligence and other technological advancements. Companies like Carefull use cutting-edge AI and machine learning techniques to detect fraud and empower adult children to oversee the everyday financial affairs of their elderly loved ones. Wellthy uses AI to provide personalized care coordination tools and support. Technology may lessen the administrative workload for families and free up more time for connection. Caring is equal parts love and work.
Forward-Looking
The labor shortage in the care economy cannot be resolved by AI and technical progress on their own. To guarantee improved standards and compensation for the caregiver workforce as well as more financial support for American families to provide more access to elder and child care, a multi-sector approach is needed.
We all have a part to play in ensuring that the rapidly advancing technology will benefit workers and societies just as much as entrepreneurs and executives. This includes employers and employees, governments and academic institutions, and investors who are dedicated to seeing the technology they support be used to further the common good.
Leaders in the industry, governments, and civil society are starting the hard talks necessary to create globally harmonized regulatory frameworks that recognize both the great promise of AI and its real risk if not used carefully. Venture capitalists are fortunate to be able to observe firsthand people developing AI’s future. It is our responsibility to push the economy in the direction of a more humane and sustainable model. There is now a lot of discussion in this area over the best course of action. The European Union issued its first legislative framework last year with the AI Act, while the White House recently released an AI Executive Order. Prioritizing safety, trust, and transparency, the Responsible Innovation Labs, a collection of venture capital investors, published a set of rules on Responsible AI Commitments and Protocol in November for businesses and funders to abide by. Numerous companies, venture capitalists, and others have already endorsed the guidelines.
The asset owners themselves, such as large foundations, pension plans, and university endowments, whose funds are managed by venture investors, must also provide the drive for ethical technology investment. It is not only morally right to align investments with ethical aims, but it is also smart business.
It will be crucial to deliberately direct our economy’s innovation engine toward technologies that serves everyone as we traverse this revolutionary era.