AI not being used to cut jobs, says RBS economist – Daily Business

Businesses are adopting artificial intelligence to improve efficiency, not to cut jobs, according to a bank economist.

Marcus Wright, senior economist at Royal Bank of Scotland, said feedback from companies employing AI contradicted the popular belief that it would be used to reduce payroll costs.

Instead, they saw it as a way of achieving better performance, he said.

“AI is about workforce re-shaping. It is not about mass lay-offs,” he told a gathering at the Royal Highland Centre. “Companies are not doing it to cut people, it is about better serving their customers.

“That is coming through loud and clear from businesses,” he said.

Suspicions around the technology were understandable, he said, because the benefits of the technology, including the productivity gains, will take time to come through, probably not until the 2030s.

“It took a while for the internet to generate economic value, but it when it did it was significant. We are at the stage of working out how to use this technology.”

He added: “Is the UK is well-placed to take advantage of AI? Yes, the UK ranks near the top, after the US and Singapore.”

RBS parent company NatWest declared last month that AI had generated an additional £100 million in cost savings as the bank employs the technology “at scale” to deliver services.

However, Rick Haythornthwaite, chairman, told Daily Business in an interview: “I don’t think it is a job destroyer, it’s a job changer. There’s no doubt the nature of jobs are changing. Right now we’re seeing roles being enhanced.”