AI tools are increasingly being implemented across divisions throughout B.C.’s corporate sector.
And while it’s reshaping companies and enabling new efficiencies, it remains unclear how AI will ultimately impact people and jobs, as adoption rises and costs drop.
“The way it’s going to shape our workforce is not in displacing employees, but making them more productive and specialized,” said Clio (Themis Solutions Inc.) vice-president of growth marketing Alex Shipillo.
Jobs at the Burnaby-based legal-technology company will evolve as AI usage becomes more widespread, he said, with human-AI collaboration becoming the norm across every single job function.
“There isn’t a single person in our team who isn’t leveraging AI in some kind of way,” said Shipillo, who added that AI tools like Gemini, ChatGPT and others are already deeply embedded across their marketing technology stack.
Data shows that Canadian organizations are moving towards the widespread usage of AI, with an April 9 KPMG LLP Canada survey finding that 27 per cent of business leaders have already adopted or deployed agentic AI in their companies. A total of 35 per cent are also actively experimenting with this technology, according to the survey.
Agentic AI is one step ahead of generative AI systems like ChatGPT, and has the ability to act autonomously and use reasoning to solve complex problems. This is set to enhance productivity across industries, according to Nvidia Corp.
KPMG found that 57 per cent of its 252 survey respondents plan to invest or adopt agentic AI over the next six months, and that 34 per cent are planning to do so in the next year.
Some of the current uses of AI include helping to convert content, draft initial emails and tackle administrative work like updates and performance reviews, said Shipillo. Clio is also starting to experiment with agentic AI in their customer success department.
“AI is a strategic enabler for Clio,” said Shipillo, adding that AI adoption in the workforce will only accelerate and deepen moving forward.
The KPMG survey showed that the most common use for agentic AI among respondents was customer service at 38 per cent, followed by cybersecurity at 30 per cent.
Despite efficiencies brought by AI implementation, increasing adoption raises questions about how workforces may change, and whether those changes will lead to worker displacement.
For Bruce Anthony, program head of the BCIT professional sales diploma, it’s difficult to forecast AI’s impact on workforces.
He said the use of AI in the customer service sector has increased, such as with the use of chatbots — which are not agentic AI. Nevertheless, the technology will continue helping customer service agents or account managers do their jobs more efficiently, he said.
KPMG Canada director of innovation Marc Low says the rapid implementation of AI “will change the world of work.”
In the short term, everyone is trying to understand what the impact will be on employment, he said, adding KPMG’s perspective is that this technology is an enabler of human capabilities.
“We’re in the middle of that same transformation for our business,” he told BIV at KPMG’s AI Made Real summit held earlier this month. “We are trying to figure out where AI can be an augmentation of the great human talent that we have inside our firm.”
Low said agentic AI will be a component of KPMG’s audit, tax and advisory work. He also pointed out that there might be companies leaning away from AI usage and opting for a human experience as a competitive differentiation.
Other B.C.-based companies, such as TELUS Corp., have seen exponential growth in the adoption of AI technologies — particularly generative AI — in departments like customer experience and engineering, according to TELUS senior vice-president and chief AI officer Jaime Tatis in an emailed response.
He wrote that over 60,000 staff at the telecommunications company are actively using AI tools for tasks like analyzing reports, generating content and writing code. Staff report saving an average of 40 minutes per AI interaction, adding up to more than 500,000 hours saved to date, said Tatis.
AI integration is shifting the workforce by eliminating routine and manual tasks, he said, adding those who embrace AI and invest in upskilling will be best positioned to succeed in this rapidly changing landscape.
“We see AI as a critical lever to address Canada’s productivity challenges,” said Tatis. The company says it is planning for the wide implementation of agentic AI, with early uses focused on IT and customer support functions.
In retail and call centres, AI manages more than 700,000 monthly queries and has saved 80,000 training hours, according to Tatis. He said the company’s vision is to boost productivity and innovation with the use of AI.
According to the KPMG survey, 88 per cent of respondents agreed adopting agentic AI will help their organizations be more competitive, with 58 per cent agreeing strongly.
Cost decreases will push workforce re-arrangement
Cost is one barrier to businesses implementing AI technologies, but KPMG’s Low says prices are coming down rapidly. According to him, one of the biggest constraints is the availability of clean data for AI models, as many KPMG clients are figuring out how to get their data houses in order.
Anthony from BCIT said protecting the customer experience may be a more pressing concern.
“They [companies] have to be really careful not to damage the customer experience through the use of AI,” he said, adding that while agentic AI is much better at adapting and being proactive with a customer when compared to a regular chatbot, customers might still prefer human-to-human interactions.
According to Low, the implementation of AI is scaling in middle-to-back-office functions, in areas such as legal, finance and operations. Experimentation, meanwhile, is seen in front-facing operations, where companies may have less control over outcomes.
During the AI summit, Creative Destruction Lab founder and author Ajay Agrawal used Shopify Inc. as an example of wide AI implementation.
CDL is a venture accelerator program founded at the Rotman School of Management in the University of Toronto.
Agrawal referred to Shopify’s plans to add specific questions during staff performance reviews about how workers are using AI, asking staff to justify why a job can’t be done by AI before asking for more human resources.
“What does this mean for jobs?,” he asked, saying this isn’t as big a problem as people think because the entire economy will have to be re-engineered.
“I don’t think there will be a shortage of things for us to do,” Agrawal said. “The answer is judgment.… Machines can crank through all the arithmetic, but the machines have no judgment.”
