The 'death' of back-office jobs: office work in the AI storm
From insurance payouts to banking, AI is taking over tasks that once took hours or days of human work – which office jobs are first in line for automation?
In Greece, the processing of health insurance claims has been revolutionised by AI Flows, an artificial intelligence tool developed by Archeiothiki. This system, which handles around 1,500 claims daily, extracts necessary information from documents and cross-checks it against policy rules. Notably, it allows for 100% case verification, enabling the detection of potential fraud that would otherwise go unnoticed.
This change has reduced processing time from 14 days to around one minute, with payments issued the following day.
Similar advancements are occurring across various industries in Europe. In banking, AI is used to assess ESG criteria, a process that previously took 16 hours of human labour but can now be completed in a fraction of the time. This technology also applies to administrative and clerical roles, which are among the most exposed to generative AI, according to a report by the International Labour Organization.
Administrative and clerical occupations, including data entry clerks, accounting staff, and administrative secretaries, are particularly vulnerable.
The shift towards AI-driven tasks does not necessarily mean job loss, but rather a transformation of roles. Companies are now able to take on tasks that were previously deemed impossible due to the sheer volume of data. For instance, one client had around 50 people working on a single process but still faced a year-long backlog. Now, entire sets of data can be checked and analysed, leading to more efficient operations.
However, this transformation also brings gender disparities into play. Women are almost twice as likely to be exposed to generative AI in their occupations compared to men, largely due to their higher presence in administrative, clerical, and support roles. While AI has entered European workplaces extensively, with 30% of workers already using AI tools in their jobs, the transition is far from straightforward.
The ILO warns that job exposure to AI does not always mean job loss, as many occupations consist of tasks that cannot be fully automated. Instead, the most likely outcome is the transformation of jobs.
Written by urgent.news from Euronews Business's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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