Ask any millennial to imagine an intern and most would bring this person to mind: a 20-something eager employee - fresh out of grad school. Hungry to learn, but spends most of their days doing coffee runs, taking meeting notes and manually entering data into spreadsheets.

Of course, a lot has happened since. Remote work has turned the workplace upside down and Gen Zs aren’t fresh-eyed graduates but digital citizens.

And at the office, AI assistants have entered the field. We can now source a co-pilot for nearly any task: whether to get help with writing copy, code or search the web for information. 

At the same time, people new to the workforce are faced with dooming news: headlines warning of an “AI apocalypse”, job losses, and layoffs. The AI revolution is here, yet, many workers ask themselves: will AI make me obsolete? 

Fear not. We’re here to bring you the good news. 

The AI advantage

Consider this: what if AI won’t steal our jobs, but do our jobs? Let us explain. 

At Arcane, we believe that AI will make work more enjoyable by doing manual, tedious, tasks on our behalf. Of course, the idea that AI will take care of the dull work for humans to focus on creative pursuits isn’t new. For centuries, philosophers, scientists and technologies have envisioned a utopian future where AI can enable human creativity. In this future scenario, AI serves as a powerful tool that democratizes access to knowledge, inspires new ideas and frees up our time.

While we’re still not at a place where we can close our laptops to pick up a paintbrush, we’re already seeing signs of how AI can work to our advantage. Take GitHub’s Copilot as an example. The Copilot helps developers identify inefficiencies, spot potential bugs and coding errors. It also speeds up the development process by generating code snippets, completing functions and writing programs based on natural language prompts. The Copilot doesn’t just help programmers write code faster, it also helps them excel at their jobs by producing work with fewer errors.

The notion that AI improves performance is backed by data. A study by MIT involving 700 workers showed that participants who had access to GPT saw a 38% boost in performance compared to those who hadn’t. 

So what about AI and interns? 

Ok, so back to the interns. As AI can now take over typical ‘intern’ tasks; taking meeting notes, doing data entry and conducting research, what does this mean for junior workers? 

For interns, AI can be a helpful tool to up-skill faster and access knowledge and guidance on how to complete complex tasks. By automating mundane work, interns will have time to take on more meaningful responsibilities. Instead of inputting data, interns can analyse and interpret data, developing skills that benefit their careers.

AI can also serve as a powerful mentor. It can offer instant, continuous, feedback, provide personalised learning experiences and help prioritise tasks. Grammarly, for instance, provides real-time writing suggestions, enabling interns to quickly level up their communication skills. Taking it a step further, AI-powered simulators can help interns practice real-world scenarios. For example, Mursion uses AI to create virtual environments where interns can role-play challenging conversations and decision-making, improving their interpersonal skills and confidence.

Looking ahead 🔮

While AI has transformed industries like customer service, manufacturing and healthcare, we’ve still got a long way to go before achieving the utopian vision many dream of. In marketing, for example, 40% of workers' time is still spent on manual tasks. The average marketer switches between 12-31 different tools - and spends more time managing work than performing the work they got hired (and applied) for. Tech was meant to make work easier, yet somewhere along the way, it made it baffling complicated. But here’s the caveat: out of those who’ve embraced AI - 45% feel that machine learning tools make their jobs easier. What’s more: 59% of business leaders who use AI within their roles, claim that they gain more enjoyment out of work.

We think that just like devs, Marketers should have access to tools that make their work lives better. The good news: now they can. We’re bringing AI automation to time-poor marketers – starting with apps but shooting for the moon. 

Without closing our eyes to the risks, we see AI as a positive force and a powerful sidekick for office workers. While AI might not be able to get you coffee (yet), it can automatically stock up your fridge with milk to go with it. (And while writing this article, Arcane’s AI-powered apps automatically manage our marketing campaigns in the background 😉). 

So next time you read some glooming news, ask yourself: how might I use AI to my advantage?

—————————————————

On another note, we're onboarding more people to Arcane 🤩

We are building a new kind of platform for Marketers looking to leverage the latest in AI automation to 10x their quality and quantity of output.

If you're interested in learning more, click here!

—————————————————