There’s been significant growth in the use of automation in today’s workplace. Many experts believed that by 2030, between 75 million to 375 million jobs would be affected due to the rapid automation implementation in organizations globally. The predictive and repetitive job roles are all exposed to the risk of being replaced by automation technology. There are a few industries that will be greatly impacted by the effects of this automation disruption.

The banking and financial industries are two of the top industries to anticipate a massive change due to automation. The integration of advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence in automation solutions is bound to exceed human performance on repetitive manual tasks or even tasks such as forecasting global financial market trends, as automation solutions will be able to produce quicker and error-free assessments and reports. Many major banks have already begun their automation implementation journey to automate processes and mimic employees’ work functions. A recent study revealed that close to 1.3 million Wall Street jobs in the US, particularly the front line service agents, financial managers, and loan officers could lose their jobs by 2030.

Therefore, instead of asking, “Will automation take our jobs?”. We should ask, “How can I prepare myself for the automation revolution?” as it is inevitable.

The enormous quantity of back-office forms and cases required to be documented and processed is why the insurance industry is also the perfect candidate for automation. Tasks such as policy administration, claims documentation, data entry and underwriting can be done seamlessly by Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions. Many insurance companies have already implemented such solutions and are starting to see the benefits. Imagine saving 54,000 work hours annually, improving accuracy in regulatory compliance tasks, and shortening the reporting process from 3 hours to 3 seconds. This is why a significant portion of the automation-related job loss impact would also be felt across the insurance industry.

At first glance, these trends and statistics may seem worrying for many of us working in those industries. However, it is also important to remember that automation doesn’t only replace jobs but also create jobs. A study done by the World Economic Forum suggested that automation will generate close to 133 million new posts internationally by 2022. This is because of the potential economic growth, innovation, and investment, driven by automation across all sectors which will require skilled professionals. Therefore, instead of asking, “Will automation take our jobs?”. We should ask, “How can I prepare myself for the automation revolution?” as it is inevitable.