Managers that use A.I. ‘will replace those that do not,’ IBM executive says

Managers that use A.I. ‘will replace those that do not,’ IBM executive says

Much has been made of the potential for people to lose their jobs to machines but, according to a senior tech executive, it's all about having employees use artificial intelligence themselves. "AI is not going to replace managers but managers that use AI will replace those that do not," Rob Thomas, senior vice president of IBM's cloud and data platform, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Monday."This really is about giving our employees, our executives, superpowers … One of the biggest things we saw take off with the pandemic was virtual assistants, so how do you care for employees, how do you care for customers in a distributed world and that's why we've seen hundreds of different organizations going live with things like Watson Assistant," Thomas added, referring to the company's AI customer service software.Technology is set to have a significant effect on employees. Machines and automation are set to eliminate 85 million jobs by 2025, according to the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2020, published in October, although overall WEF expects 97 million new jobs to be created.When asked whether AI automation would contribute to job losses, Thomas said human employees' roles would likely change. "We've done a