New BCG Report Says AI Services Will Add Up To USD 200 Billion In New Work

Artificial intelligence services will create between USD 100 billion and USD 200 billion in net new work by the year 2030, according to a new study by Boston Consulting Group. The global services market is expected to expand from USD 1.6 to 1.7 trillion in 2025 up to USD 2.2 to 2.4 trillion by 2030. AI-led services will add USD 300 billion to USD 400 billion to this market growth, though USD 200 billion in traditional services revenue is expected to vanish.

Talent And Reskilling

Traditional technology firms can meet most of this rising demand by training their current employees rather than hiring from outside. Applied AI professionals make up only 10 to 15 percent of staff at traditional firms, compared to 90 to 95 percent at companies born out of AI. Forward-deployed roles that work directly with clients make up less than 5 percent of traditional tech staff, while reaching 45 percent at AI-native firms. Sreyssha George, Managing Director and Partner at BCG, stated that traditional firms do not face an AI talent shortage, but rather a decision to make.

Roles And Costs

BCG has mapped out 40 specific Applied AI roles that can be created from jobs already present inside tech firms. For example, data scientists can shift into forward-deployed engineering roles, and data engineers can become semantic engineers. However, the effort needed to reskill workers varies, as training a data scientist to be a forward-deployed engineer takes three times the effort required to train a data engineer for an AI data role. Hiring these specialists from outside can also cost up to 35 percent more than equivalent traditional roles.

Context

Boston Consulting Group is a major global management consulting firm that regularly releases industry reports on business and technology trends. As artificial intelligence changes workplace demands, companies worldwide are trying to figure out how to transition their current workforces into AI-ready teams.