Since the explosive launch of ChatGPT, there has been a prevailing fear among workers that employers would leverage artificial intelligence to cut costs by replacing human jobs. However, new research has unveiled an interesting twist: CEOs are contemplating replacing their own roles with AI.
Researchers from edX, an education platform for upskilling workers, conducted a survey involving over 1,500 executives and knowledge workers. The findings revealed that nearly half of CEOs believe AI could potentially replace "most" or even all aspects of their own positions.
What's even more intriguing is that 47% of the surveyed executives not only see the possibility of AI taking over their roles but also view it as a desirable development.
Why? Because they anticipate that AI could rekindle the need for traditional leadership for those who remain.
“Success in the CEO role hinges on effective leadership, and AI can liberate time for this crucial aspect of their role,” Andy Morgan, Head of edX for Business comments on the findings.
“CEOs understand that time saved on routine tasks can stimulate innovation, nurture creativity, and facilitate essential upskilling for their teams, fostering both individual and organizational success," he adds.
Faced with tight schedules and increased pressure to run companies as lean as possible, Morgan suspects that CEOs are already handing over routine tasks to the likes of Bard, ChatGPT, and Bing to make more time for top-level decision-making.
What’s more, experts have previously told Fortune that it may not be long before AI can take on more complex responsibilities from CEOs, like negotiating contracts with suppliers and customers, evaluating employees, and allocating their company’s capital.
"CEOs aren’t going anywhere"
Although CEOs believe that their jobs should be taken over by the latest technology, Morgan isn’t so sure.
"CEOs aren’t going anywhere,” he tells Fortune. “We’ll continue to see the relevance and necessity of human skills in the workplace – critical thinking, creativity, and leadership – that are foundational to the CEO role and that artificial intelligence simply can’t replace.”
While AI won’t be replacing executives any time soon, Morgan cautions that it's the CEOs using AI that will ultimately supersede those who are not.
But CEOs already know this: EdX’s research echoed that 79% of executives fear that if they don’t learn how to use AI, they’ll be unprepared for the future of work.
“For top executives, including prospective and current CEOs, understanding and leveraging AI will be paramount to future success," Morgan insists. “It’s not about humans versus AI, but rather about how we incorporate these developments into the workplace to ensure long-term relevance.”
Work with A.I., not against it
Morgan’s not the first expert to advise leaders to work with, not against new technologies.
Instead of wasting time worrying about the existential threat posed by AI, Reddit’s former chief Yishan Wong told Fortune that professionals should look into how to sidestep their careers into AI because it doesn’t require “an enormous amount of technical skill.”
“Nontechnical people can build pretty valuable and novel applications on AI. There’s this enormous amount of leverage that an individual can have,” he added.
Likewise, the economist Richard Baldwin echoed, “A.I. won’t take your job” during a panel at the 2023 World Economic Forum’s Growth Summit. “It’s somebody using A.I. that will take your job.”
Regardless of the job function, he thinks that automation and AI will disrupt every single role, and as such, “everyone will need to learn how to deal with it.”
Meanwhile, IBM’s chief commercial officer Rob Thomas similarly cautioned during a press conference, “A.I. may not replace managers, but the managers that use A.I. will replace the managers that do not.”
