Source page: McKinsey & Company
Commentary
Automatic for the people
Artificial Intelligence | Technology
November 3, 2023 – Knowledge workers, prepare for automation. While previous generations of automation technology were largely aimed at data management tasks, generative AI’s natural-language capabilities position it to automate activities in knowledge work, senior partner Lareina Yee and coauthors explain. The application of expertise, for example, jumped 34 percentage points in automation potential this year.
To read the report, see “The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier,” June 14, 2023.
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Visual form
Multi-panel before-and-after automation comparison. Each panel uses a solid filled block for automation potential with generative AI and a dashed outline for automation potential without generative AI.
Layout / body structure
The page is organized as a set of category panels grouped under decision making and collaboration, data management, and physical work. Reader moves left to right across the panels, comparing the solid filled area to the dashed outline in each task type.
What is being compared
The visual compares automation potential in 2023 for different types of work with and without generative AI. It contrasts collaboration and expertise tasks such as applying expertise, managing, and interfacing with stakeholders against data tasks and physical tasks.
Measurement system
The unit is percentage automation potential in midpoint scenarios. The numbers are printed directly in the solid and dashed shapes, so the reader can measure the uplift from generative AI by comparing the filled value with the lower dashed reference value in the same panel.
Visible structure inside the graphic
Each task panel contains a larger solid blue block and an inner dashed benchmark box. That repeated structure makes the gain from generative AI visible in every category, while the category grouping across the page shows where the largest jumps occur.
Main takeaway from the visual
Generative AI lifts automation potential most sharply in knowledge-work categories that previously looked harder to automate. The panel layout makes that clear because the gap between the solid and dashed values is much larger for applying expertise, managing, and interfacing with stakeholders than it is for already-automatable physical work.
Key standout values or extremes
Applying expertise rises from 24.5 percent without generative AI to 58.5 percent with it. Managing rises from 15.5 to 49.0, interfacing with stakeholders rises from 24.0 to 45.0, and data-processing tasks are already high, moving from 73.0 to 90.5; by contrast, unpredictable physical work changes only from 45.0 to 46.0.
Controls / sequence, when applicable
This is a static chart image with no in-chart controls to operate.
Companion media, when applicable
There is no separate companion audio or video; the chart image is the full visual on this page.