Close to three quarters of German consumers (72%) believe that their current job cannot be replaced by AI, a study by the TÜV Association has found.
According to the study, which surveyed 1,001 people aged 16 or over, some 53% of employees believe that artificial intelligence will play a ‘large’ or ‘very large’ role in their profession in five years’ time, while 44% believe it will have little or no impact.
Currently, around one in three (31%) employed people in Germany use generative AI applications such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or Le Chat for professional purposes, while among the general population, this rises to 53%, as many respondents use such applications privately.
Changing work processes
“Artificial intelligence will fundamentally change many work processes in almost all professional fields – from plant engineering to dental technology,” commented Dr. Joachim Bühler, managing director of the TÜV Association, noting that AI is already being used in various industrial fields, such as robotics, production planning, and product development.
“It is crucial that employees develop the necessary AI skills early on,” he added.
Read more: More than half of Germans using generative AI regularly
Job losses
Other findings from the study include that 49% of respondents believe that AI could lead to widespread job losses, however just 7% personally fear losing their job to AI.
Elsewhere, three in five (60%) of employees consider further training in AI to be valuable for their professional development, while just 19% of employees state that their employer has issued specific regulations for the use of generative AI in the workplace.
“Most employers apparently lack a strategic approach to how artificial intelligence can be used most profitably in their organisation,” commented Bühler.
Where such guidelines exist, they tend to focus on areas such as data protection (76%), regulations for the protection of sensitive information (63%), or copyright regulations (61%). Some 54% require their employees to conduct fact-checks on AI-generated content, while 4% state that the use of generative AI is strictly prohibited in their workplace. Read more here.
