AI impacts tasks, not job titles, says LinkedIn CEO

Workers can keep themselves in the driver's seat of a rapidly changing employment market if they understand the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) in terms of tasks it can augment, rather than jobs it threatens.

- Tay Hong Yi

The advice comes from Mr Ryan Roslansky, chief executive of professional networking platform LinkedIn, when asked how people can adjust amid a global workforce shaken up by AI.

Mr Roslansky told The Straits Times by e-mail in an exclusive interview on Oct 13: "Professionals can have more agency amid this transition by thinking of their job not as a title, but as a set of tasks." His role affords him a front-row seat to how jobs are evolving, from his platform's data to the company's own workforce and his interactions with other top executives.

The company veteran of over 15 years is in Singapore for a whirlwind 36-hour trip ending on Oct 18 to visit customers, policymakers and LinkedIn's Asia-Pacific headquarters here. Mr Roslansky, who has been in his present job for around four years, advises: "Bucket those tasks into those likely to be augmented or automated by AI and learn how to use AI as a tool for those. You can then focus on the tasks that are insulated from AI: These are the soft, uniquely human skills."