Artificial intelligence is reshaping roles and driving new hiring in companies

The promise of automating processes, cutting costs, and achieving more with smaller teams has led many companies to replace employees with AI systems. However, in practice, this transition is not always straightforward. Tasks that require judgment, customer interaction, or specialized business knowledge can cause problems when fully automated.

A notable example is the Swedish fintech company Klarna. In 2024, the company announced that its AI assistant performed work equivalent to that of around 700 customer service agents. A year later, CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski admitted that the pursuit of cost reduction had gone too far and that the quality of support had declined. Since then, Klarna has resumed hiring and started combining its chatbot with human professionals, especially when customers need direct interaction or when a request cannot be resolved automatically.

New roles are emerging with AI integration

IBM provides another example. In 2026, the company plans to triple its entry-level hiring in the United States, arguing that roles are being redesigned for an environment where AI tools handle routine tasks. For instance, a junior developer may spend less time writing basic code and more time interacting with clients, analyzing problems, and reviewing AI-generated results. In human resources, professionals can take on cases that chatbots cannot resolve.

The adoption of this technology also creates new roles that previously did not exist, such as governing artificial agents, managing AI platforms, and integrating these solutions into internal processes. For workers, this means that the ability to collaborate with AI is becoming essential, but it goes beyond knowing how to use a chatbot. Understanding the technology’s limitations, reviewing responses, evaluating results, and incorporating the tool into workflows are increasingly important skills.

Global research shows that automation is not a panacea

A study by the IBM Institute for Business Value, involving 2,000 CEOs from 33 countries, reveals that the transition to AI is not uniform. Only 25% of the projects analyzed delivered the expected return on investment, while 16% were expanded across the entire organization. Nevertheless, 54% of executives reported hiring for AI-related roles that did not exist a year ago, and 31% predict that part of the workforce will need training or requalification in the next three years.

The data helps explain why eliminating jobs is not necessarily the final outcome of adopting this technology. A company may automate a task and later require professionals to oversee the system, handle exceptions, protect data, or apply the results to strategic decisions.

What changes for those already in the market

The cases of Klarna and IBM demonstrate that artificial intelligence can alter the content of a job even when the number of employees remains stable or begins to grow again. This trend underscores the importance of skills that complement AI, such as business knowledge, analytical ability, communication, and result review—competencies that remain essential in situations where automated systems cannot perform satisfactorily.

For professionals, keeping up with these changes means identifying which tasks can be automated and which will require more supervision, analysis, or human interaction. The current scenario suggests that the relationship between AI and employment is more complex than a simple replacement of workers by machines: in some cases, automation reduces specific activities; in others, it creates new responsibilities and modifies the skills needed to perform them.