1. According to the WEF, automation will result in about 85 million jobs being lost by 2025.
  2. The global AI market size was USD $62.35B in 2020 and is expected to reach over USD $93.5B by the end of 2021.
  3. The AI market is predicted to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 40.2% between 2021 and 2028, reaching a value of almost USD $1 trillion by 2028.

The western world’s economic growth and e-commerce market expansion is undoubtedly closely related with the way business colossals around the world are actively incorporating AI business technologies into their: digital marketing, structure, and HR models.

The European Parliament- whose top-tier digital infrastructure and legal framework have been made to protect the privacy and commercial freedom of individuals, has recently released a study which considered the ample advantages and disadvantages that will likely follow due to the overt expansion of AI- both in a business setting and in regular day-to-day life.

Let’s take a look at them below, considering their application on a global level.

Benefits and Advantages of AI

Business Benefits

From a business standpoint, certain AI tools- such as Website Builders, Logo Creation Software, and AI-powered data analysis tools, will likely facilitate the development of a new era of products and services- not just within the EU, but on a global level.

Green and Circular economies, machinery, e-commerce, and healthcare are just a few of the prominent sectors that are expected to experience prolific growth- increasing their qualitative and quantitative metrics and significantly driving increased production output and total sales revenue.

Non-Business Benefits of AI

As briefly touched on above, there are a plethora of non-business benefits that our world could potentially reap as a result of the increased development of AI on a global setting.

For one, AI tools could in theory enable us to create and maintain: more robust and safe transportation systems, safer cars, and even cheaper and more sturdy products with an increased life-span. The education sector is no different, with over 45% of education-related tools predicted to operate solely under AI over the next 5 years. This trend was likely already facilitated due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on the availability of human capital.

Potential Threats and Disadvantages of AI

Having said that, the increased usage of AI is inadvertently coupled with a plethora of potential risks and disadvantages.

Underusage & Overusage of AI

One major threat is the potential underuse of AI. This could result in missed fiscal growth opportunities and greatly decrease the competitive advantage of countries around the globe- leading to further decreased economic & job possibilities and increased economic stagnation.

This is likely to stem from a lack of trust from the public, as well as insufficient government body initiatives and financial investment.

On the other hand, overusing AI can also be quite problematic and give rise to massive disparities between social classes- as workers have to be replaced with machinery, further broadening the gap in income inequality.

The National Bureau of Economic Research, for example, claims that between 50 and 70% of changes in U.S. wages are a direct result of the fact that workers are being increasingly replaced by automated machinery.

Web Design and Development Industry

A recent report by the World Economic Forum (WEF), evaluated that the proliferation of ‘’smart machines’’ in the future generations, could very easily act as a replacement tool whereby a large percentage of the existing human workforce is substituted by AI.

Below is an example of one of the most powerful AI-powered logo makers that can do some of the basic functions a graphic designer is responsible for:

Arguably, the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has further pushed forth this process, as business owners and corporations were incentivised to further learn how to rely on technologies rather than human capital, and consequently were able to significantly cut back on costs and enhance their productivity.

This is particularly the case within the web design & development industry, who has seen an increasing amount of AI technology incorporation, enabling brilliant Website Builders to allow business owners to overcome a significant amount of rigmarole in the process of designing their website- saving irreplaceable time and costs. According to TRUiC research, some of these website builders are really powerful and act as true cost savers to business owners.

The problem comes when global titans start incorporating such technologies into their corporate structure; brands like Wix, Godaddy, and Shopify, to name a few, are significantly capping workers’ potential earnings in fields that they have been training in all of their lives by providing cheaper and faster alternatives.

Overall, AI- albeit predicted to create a large number of new jobs in the future, is set to significantly handicap current ‘skilled’ industries, unless such workers segue into other areas of the market via further training and education.

Final Take

It is true that tech giants themselves can become irrelevant when changes happen and they are not prepared, for example when we look at the recent Google Core Web Vitals update and they may not have an easy task to remain trendy and relevant. As a final note, we can see that the innovative and inspiring AI business technology that has been integrated into our global economy in the last couple of years- particularly in the spheres web design, e-commerce, and marketing, are indubitably here to stay.