AI will impact white-collar jobs first, but boost GDP: IBM CEO Arvind Krishna

“This means you can get the same work done with fewer people. That’s just the nature of productivity. I actually believe that the first set of roles that will get impacted are — what I call — back office, white-collar work,” he said.

Krishna, who became IBM’s CEO in April 2020 and its chairman in January 2021, said that he is focusing on AI and hybrid cloud as the key technologies for the future. In May, the company announced WatsonX, an AI tool that allows clients to build, train and deploy machine learning models.

Krishna also suggested that AI will have a vital role to play in the future when the working-age population declines: “So you need to get productivity, otherwise quality of life is going to fall. And AI, I think, is the only answer we got.”

In May, a Bloomberg report quoted Krishna as IBM would pause hiring with plans to replace 7,800 jobs in departments such as human resources with AI and automation. However, he now suggests that AI will be working alongside those people.

“So what I said was, we are not going to backfill those [white-collar] roles for the next five years. But you get digital labour or AI bots, augmenting and working alongside their fellow humans doing that work. So that is where the 7,800 [number] came from,” Krishna told CNBC’s Martin Soong.

Krishna also stated that AI’s effect on the workforce isn’t “displacing,” rather it’s “augmenting,” adding that it will boost GDP and we should all feel better about it.

Krishna joined IBM in 1990 and has been leading the company since April 2020.