"Phew, I Wasn't Laid Off at a Major Company, But I'm Moving to Another Team" [AI Era, Jobs Are Changing]

'Organizational Changes After AI Adoption': Survey of Top 100 Companies
38% of Large Corporations Say "AI Adoption Led to Reassignment, Not Layoffs"
Internal Adjustments Through Retraining and Job Transfers
Only 9.5% of Companies Plan Workforce Reductions
Mid- to Long-Term Strategy Takes Priority Over Cost Savings
Changes Spreading First in Office and Administrative Sectors

As artificial intelligence (AI) enters industrial sites, companies are increasingly focusing on shifting the roles of existing employees and reallocating work. While concerns are growing that the spread of AI will lead to mass unemployment, companies are instead maximizing the benefits of AI by changing their workforce management strategies. A structure is spreading in which AI takes on repetitive and standardized tasks, while humans are responsible for reviewing results, making judgments, and taking responsibility.

According to the "Survey on Organizational Changes After AI Adoption" conducted by The Asia Business Daily from December 8 to 19 last year, targeting personnel, strategy, organization, and planning department managers at Korea's top 100 companies, 37.8% of the 74 companies that responded to the question about changes in personnel after AI adoption said, "Employees have shifted from their original work to focus mainly on support and supervisory roles." This means that while the main work is now handled by AI, jobs have shifted to areas where AI cannot operate.

Twenty companies, or 27.0%, responded that employees took on new roles after retraining. Thirteen companies, or 17.6%, said that employees naturally moved to other departments or positions. In other words, more than half of the respondents indicated that employees have been reassigned to different roles within the organization after the introduction of AI.

Image of a humanoid robot model under development by Persona AI. The Asia Business Daily DB

On the other hand, only seven companies, or 9.5%, said they had reduced staff through organizational restructuring or contract adjustments. Only six companies, or 8.1%, said that employees were excluded from their previous roles and remained as standby personnel without new assignments. This suggests that the introduction of AI is leading to changes in job content and roles rather than directly resulting in workforce reductions.

This perception is also reflected in the criteria for workforce reallocation. When reallocating personnel after AI adoption, the most commonly considered factor was the need to restructure job functions according to mid- to long-term strategies, cited by 29.7%. Whether employees possessed the necessary competencies for their new assignments was cited by 25.7%, and whether reallocation would address manpower shortages or work gaps accounted for 20.3%.

Relatively few companies viewed AI adoption primarily as a means to reduce costs or downsize staff. Only 14.9% said that reducing labor or operating costs was their top consideration, while just 9.5% said that the potential for AI to replace current tasks was their main focus-the lowest proportion among all responses.

The area where changes were most immediately observed after AI adoption was document production, such as drafting and summarizing reports. Of the 74 companies surveyed, 39.2% selected this area. Twenty-six companies, or 35.1%, responded that basic tasks such as repetitive data entry or organizing materials had been automated. In total, 74.3% of companies reported changes in office and administrative areas, including document preparation and data organization.

Only 14.9% of companies said that real-time processing tasks, such as responding to customer or internal inquiries, had been automated through AI. Additionally, only 10.8% reported that decision support functions had been enhanced, increasing the proportion of judgment-related work. This indicates that the use of AI for management decisions and decision support has not yet become widespread.

Experts predict that AI will focus more on handling the front-end of tasks to improve speed and efficiency, rather than replacing humans entirely. The role of humans in reviewing, making judgments, and taking responsibility for the results provided by AI will become even more important.

Park Jongcheol, President of Woori Management Research Institute, emphasized, "AI utilization capabilities are becoming an important standard for future workforce management in companies," and added, "To respond to these changes, systematic job retraining and competency transformation at the company level must be pursued in parallel."