CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Artificial intelligence is becoming a bigger part of everyday business, but the technology is also raising questions about the future of jobs across the Tennessee Valley.
We explain how the realm of AI is rapidly growing—sparking concern of job loss in some industries.
According to the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development, roughly 500,000 jobs in Tennessee are expected to be augmented or transformed by AI in the coming years.
Chris Willis, with a cloud-based platform company called Domo, tells me that even if AI takes it over, it won’t replace human skills needed for the role.
“One of the biggest mistakes we’ve seen is that companies thought, oh, we should just automate everything, or we can automate everything. However, automating without insight just leads to an inevitable, inevitable faster crash, right? And so again, human judgment, I think, is going to play a much bigger role, said Chris Willis, Chief Design Officer & Futurist, Domo.”
According to reports from Cognizant, across all occupations, average exposure scores, which is the degree to which an occupation could be affected by AI, are 30% higher than what we’d forecast they’d be by 2032.
“One would be really engaged with this technology deeply. So, building your AI literacy is one second would be, lean into what makes you a good person, be empathetic, understand judgment, understand your business, because AI doesn’t know your business or your patients, said Chris Willis, Chief Design Officer & Futurist, Domo.”
But it’s not all bad news; some companies are creating jobs because of the expansion of AI.
One example is Valerie Health, an AI-powered healthcare technology company.
The Chattanooga Chamber says the San Francisco-based company is planning to create 100 new jobs in Chattanooga by the end of 2026 and add 100 more to that over three years.