Generative AI will create more IT activity and more jobs

With Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools across industries, many skilled and knowledge workers are uneasy about AI disrupting or even eliminating their jobs, but tech experts assert that AI is intended to help humans - not replace them.

“AI will generate new avenues of work. With generative AI we will have a whole lot of new IT activity, which will create more jobs, Naresha Supramaniam, Business Head (APAC) and Country Head (Sri Lanka) Virtusa the global provider of digital engineering solutions said recently. The company during the past month had filled over 100 positions, he added.

Noting that AI will change things dramatically, he said that it will also create new types of jobs and opportunities for people.

With over 35,000 workflows across more than 50 offices in more than 25 countries, Virtusa stands out in the industry with a competitive structure in the global marketplace, competing with industry peers listed among the best in the world, Mr. Supramaniam said. The staff strength is about 3000. “We are trying to bring more work to Sri Lanka from the US and Europe. We have embarked on that journey and hopefully in three years’ time we shall be able to double our workforce here in Sri Lanka,” he said at a media conference recently. Brian Jochum, the company's chief marketing officer and a member of the global CXO team, noted that generative AI will not replace jobs, but create a lot more and discussed how the company values engineering excellence and the impact it has created to all the stakeholders. “The engineering first mindset is credited as a unifying philosophy which draws from the company's rich engineering heritage, its unique slant towards solving problems for some of the world's largest businesses and the opportunities it creates for the talent at the company to learn and perform at the highest levels,” he explained.

The team, acknowledging the brain drain the country is currently witnessing had some interesting ideas to combat it.