IBM Corp.’s Watson computer has shown that computers can be taught to understand data enough to play Jeopardy and learn enough to assist doctors in healthcare decisions. Companies such as Google Inc., Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have pushed smart assistants such as Google’s, Siri, Alexa and Cortana into mobile devices and home automation systems. While still primitive, they can mimic human replies while understanding commands given or questions posed.

All that has given a multitude of industries and workers pause, for good reason. A report from analyst firm Forrester recently cited a 6 percent loss of U.S. jobs to AI and robots by 2021.

But some experts argue that while some jobs may be displaced by the use of AI, artificial intelligence will for the most part augment most of those jobs more than it will eliminate them. Mikhail Naumov, co-founder of Digital Genius Limited, a firm that does customer support automation, and Nick Edwards, chief executive and co-founder of Boomtrain Inc., a company working on smart marketing tools, believe the current generation of AI will make work easier and swifter.

Transformation in customer service

Mikhail Naumov of DigitalGenius told SiliconANGLE that a big part of the AI revolution will be making technological advances more “invisible” to the everyday worker by hiding them within systems that augment worker efficiency.

“Here’s how I look at it: We are deploying our deep learning to customer service centers to augmented what customer service does,” Naumov explains. “There is a change that happened when the industrial age came around and robots began to do take away repetitive manual labor…what’s going on now is the replacement of repetitive intelligence labor.”

Naumov sees the emergence of a new space he calls the “human-AI interface.” This is where an AI is embedded into a human agent’s workflow that allows the human to do more work than could be done before. This is the change in function of what the human does, not the loss of a job.

For customer service, Naumov believes that a lot of time that could be used to interact with customers directly is being lost by customer service agents because of time required to translate customer needs and questions into the “machine language” of a customer service database query. An AI would greatly enhance a customer service representative’s ability to quickly resolve a problem with a much smarter interface.

Additional jobs will even arise out of AI use in customer contact centers. Naumov predicts that businesses will need a new specialized role for dealing with AI. Jobs for resident AI experts who can liaison with machine learning companies and services in order to best implement the hardware and software will be needed.

Transformation in marketing

Another business sector set to be transformed by AI is marketing, says Nick Edwards of Boomtrain. People are already good at talking one-on-one to other people, but marketing is about attempting to talk one-on-thousands or potentially -millions and in that transition much of the personality is lost.

In the marketing sector, Edwards believes that AI can be used to transform how marketers approach markets by helping answer the fundamental questions: whom do I contact, what do I say, and through what channel? But also he believes that AI can be used to help personalize messages for a more one-to-one approach when contacting customers en masse.

“We strive to make marketing more human,” says Edwards, “and there is a hint of irony in there in that we’re doing it with machine learning.”

According to Edwards, Boomtrain’s approach to AI marketing does not replace marketers; instead, it augments the capability that marketers already possess. It provides the capability to do at-scale what a single marketer can do with a small group of people. In the current economy, mass marketing calls for with massive outlay of time and energy to large groups—sacrificing the human connection for an impersonal note. An AI could use its own vast research capability to customize messages for a thousand or a million contacts.

Edwards believes that as marketing AI technology comes into the sector it will give companies a better capability to streamline business practices and sales, which will give businesses the opportunity to make more money and hire more people.

Some jobs lost, others created

Amid different job sectors, it’s clear that some jobs will be transformed-away (or replaced entirely) by automated systems. The problem will be that, just like the robotic revolution, many of these jobs will be skilled repetitive labor such as delivery vehicle drivers and truck drivers, whose industries face disruption from autonomous vehicles.

Edwards hypothesizes that much of this is because of how AI is expected to be applied to these industries. Overall, he believes that as AI is a platform for technological advancement its application to high-level jobs such as marketing and customer service it will give rise to new roles and new opportunities.

However, the rise of automated vehicles and delivery drones, seek in application to supplant human drivers and delivery workers. The first generations will require drivers to pay attention while an autopilot does its work, as it true for the current Tesla cars, but eventually the expectation is that one person can oversee multiple vehicles remotely.

All of these radical changes are still years out and the 6 percent job loss Forrester figure looms large for the AI and robotic revolution. However, a slow transformation will be one that the economy and workers can see coming and find ways to fit themselves into the changing workforce landscape.