German software maker SAP SE is confident that artificial intelligence (AI) will create new jobs even as the rise of new technology overshadows human jobs.

“We believe that artificial intelligence will create more jobs by increasing productivity. We are working with our partners to leverage artificial intelligence and improve the efficiency of our projects,” said Muhammad Alam, SAP product engineering board member, during a roundtable with the media at the company’s research and development (R&D) laboratory in Bengaluru on Wednesday.

“AI further fuels our business growth by helping us accelerate migrations and reduce implementation costs,” Alam said.

Chief executive Christian Klein echoed a similar view, stating that as AI-powered businesses grow, the need for developers will increase, which will increase the development workforce in India.

“In India, your economy is diversifying very quickly and all of these customers need software; This is the best place to be in technology,” said Klein, who took over as CEO in his interaction with the media in April 2020. “We can now code this software faster, we can be more productive, but we need to code more software. As long as this is the case, we will continue to invest. Also, the development workforce here in India will increase further.”

“While AI is likely to reduce the number of people to perform a particular task, we need to see more jobs opening up across multiple technologies due to AI,” said Ashutosh Sharma, vice president and director of research. Forrester Research. He added that technology spending will increase across organizations and AI will be instrumental in creating new jobs emerging from companies investing in new technologies enabled by AI.

SAP is a software manufacturer headquartered in Walldorf, Germany, that equips the world’s largest companies with software that can manage business processes, including human resources, finance, supply chain management and inventories.

The SAP board’s cheerful remarks about artificial intelligence contrast with those of Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google parent company Alphabet Inc. Pichai raises alarm bells about coders’ jobs in comments he made with analysts on the company’s post-earnings conference call.

“We also use AI internally to improve our coding processes, which increases productivity and efficiency. Today, more than a quarter of all new code at Google is generated by AI, then reviewed and accepted by engineers,” Pichai said, adding that the company’s 2024-2024 code deadline is 2024. in a call with analysts on Oct. 29 after announcing its financial results for the quarter.

In India, top executives at the country’s largest software services companies are trying to allay investors’ concerns about the threat to jobs posed by generative artificial intelligence (GenAI).

“ChatGPT aroused great interest in the early days. But people are gradually realizing that this is the most useful method for some problems. In an interview with Mint on July 12, K. Krithivasan, CEO of Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, India’s largest software services company, recognizes that this will not eliminate all jobs; “people will be needed,” he said.

The launch of ChatGPT nearly two years ago catapulted GenAI into not only fame but also into the company’s boardroom discussions for its capabilities to produce video, audio and written content.

Krithivasan’s colleague Salil Parekh, who is the CEO of Infosys Ltd, also expressed a similar view. “So at this stage, I think (AI) technology, unlike anything else, will help the business grow further. We are not seeing any layoffs at Infosys with these new technologies,” Parekh told PTI in an interview on August 26.

These comments are significant for India, where at least one million engineering students graduate every year. This jump in demand for new technology will also lead to a change in the skills needed by graduates.

Speed ​​engineers, an industry term for coders who specialize in instructing AI models to produce the best results, are in demand from large companies looking to hire talent equipped with GenAI-ready skill sets, Mint reported on March 13.

For now, the benefits of artificial intelligence are still unclear because most local companies are reluctant to disclose their revenue from the new technology, unlike their global peers Accenture Plc and IBM Corp.

IBM’s GenAI-related book of business (bookings and actual sales) is more than $2 billion as of July 2024, while Accenture, the world’s largest software services company, reported $3 billion in Gen AI bookings for the fiscal year ending August 2024. .

Addressing shareholders at the company’s 43rd annual general meeting, Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani said the adoption of Gen AI in large companies will be slower than in consumer-facing companies.

“The world is in the very early stages of the AI ​​revolution and unlike consumer AI, which will become widespread quickly, enterprise AI requires companies to make major changes within the company, organize their data, create responsible systems, and comply with the law. many countries etc. So, it will take a few years for enterprise AI to emerge,” Nilekani said on July 1, 2024.

Just over half of SAP’s revenue comes from its cloud business. The company reported revenue of $9.06 billion for July-September 2024; of that, the cloud business alone accounted for $4.66 billion.