Three innovations set to change work life in the next 20 years

Taking inspiration from the futurists featured in our Future 2043 report, discover three innovations that provide a glimpse of what the future workplace might look like

Imagine you are waking up for work on a Wednesday morning in the year 2043. What will the day ahead look like for you? What kind of job will you have? Will you even have a job at all? To try and find answers to these questions, we turned to some of the world’s leading futurists in our Future 2043 report, published last week.

“In most applications, robots are already faster, more accurate, and more consistent than the humans who might otherwise have performed those tasks,” points out Rohit Talwar, CEO of Fast Future. “From bricklaying and restaurant kitchens to surgery and goods distribution, adoption of robotic technology is accelerating.”

So will a working person in 2043 be on the dole, or, more optimistically, preparing for a day of relaxation? Not necessarily. “While it is true that machines will take over jobs involving repetitive and monotonous tasks, many new jobs will also be created,” explains Manish Bahl, Chief Executive and Founder of Curious Insights. “Can a machine (in its software or hardware form) create itself, market itself, and sell itself? Deliver itself? Feed itself? Clean itself? Fix itself?”, he asks.

To gain an insight into tomorrow’s workplace today, discover below three innovations spotted by Springwise that embody some of the themes outlined in our report.

AI-POWERED TRAINING PLATFORM HELPS BUSINESSES PREDICT FUTURE SKILL GAPS

As digital skill sets continue to evolve, Israeli startup retrain.ai helps workers and employers make the most of forthcoming opportunities. An artificial intelligence-powered platform, retrain.ai identifies the skills a business needs to meet future industry demands. By analysing the skill set of current employees, the platform is able to map the knowledge, personal attributes and qualifications currently available to the company. With that data, a business can better understand where gaps in expertise may lie as well as indicate employees who could be good matches for lateral, as well as vertical, promotions internally. Read more

RESTAURANT CHAIN TRIALS ROBOT WAITERS FOR TABLE SERVICE

Diners at one of the UK locations of restaurant chain Bella Italia now have the opportunity to interact with a robot waiter named the BellaBot. Big eyes and a range of facial expressions make the service robot—designed by Chinese robot-maker Pudu Robotics—fun for customers while serving up a much more serious benefit for the human members of the staff team. The intelligent service robots manage multiple commands to safely deliver fresh-from-the-kitchen meals to the correct tables. The robots are helping short-staffed teams manage their workloads by undertaking some of the more time-consuming tasks of a restaurant, including guiding diners to their table, delivering meals to multiple tables in one trip, and returning dirty dishes to the kitchen. Read more

DIGITAL EMPLOYEES COULD TRANSFORM FINANCIAL SERVICES

Financial services is already an exemplar of a conservative industry transformed by digital disruption. But many of the financial services applications for AI focus on back-end processes: investment decision-making, fraud detection, and trend analysis. Soul Machines, by contrast, is focusing on front-end customer service. Financial services—and banking in particular—have been typified by a relationship of trust with the customer. After all, banks are entrusted with customers’ hard-earned cash. A key question is how can banks create a trusting relationship through digital channels. Soul Machines’ answer is to deploy conversational AI in the form of ‘digital employees’ – human-like interfaces that can serve customers across a wide range of services. Read more

Want to discover more about what the world will look like in 2043? Download our free Future 2043 report which draws on the insights of 20 of the world’s leading futurists. For more innovations, head to the Springwise Innovation Library.