Will ChatGPT Change Contingent Work?

Learn how companies can leverage this new technology in recruiting

When San Francisco–based company OpenAI released ChatGPT in November 2022, it simultaneously became all the rage and controversial. It is built on OpenAI’s GPT-3 language models, which have taken assistive technology to a new level and surprised business leaders across the globe. From writing blogs to fixing bugs, it has many professionals on their toes, panicking about a looming new work reality.
 

Generative AI systems have generally emerged from deep learning models trained on broad, unstructured data sets covering many topics. In other words, they create original content by learning from existing data, which has the power to transform the ways companies operate and boost productivity.

At the same time, despite one out of every two workers expected to hold a freelance position by 2028, freelance workers and contractors are learning they will need to evolve their skill sets at the same rate as this technology to keep up.

While generative AI is nothing new — we have been using it for more than a year to flesh out our recruitment tools — it is now particularly presenting a challenge for the contingent workforce. Let us dive into the risks they may face this year and how they can leverage this new technology.

Automation: Less Work or More Opportunities?

Business leaders use freelancers to augment their workforces, pass on repetitive tasks, eliminate overhead costs, and reduce their long-term commitment to individuals. The number one reason to use freelancers is when businesses need additional support to complete projects last minute.

Now, although executives are using generative AI cautiously, there’s no doubt that it is becoming a productivity enhancement tool that can do many of the tasks freelancers are assigned.

One of our customers, a SaaS company, traditionally used the contingent workforce for specific projects when they needed more software developers due to surges in demand. Now, they are experimenting with ChatGPT to write code.

Their in-house developers have become more like product managers, looking at the output generated and tweaking it. Generative AI has produced more cost-effective, efficient results for this company and largely replaced their use of freelancers. However, in some scenarios, further understanding of the software industry and specific skill sets are still necessary.

This automation of repetitive work can also benefit the contingent workforce: It could make hiring more equitable and level the playing field. With ChatGPT boosting human productivity, many parents — especially working mothers — could get more work done with less by using generative AI, leading to disposable income and closing the workplace gender gap.

Rethinking Roles and Titles

HR leaders and talent acquisition (TA) teams are also assessing their job descriptions and redefining the roles they need to fill.

There’s very little competition when it comes to freelance AI specialist work right now, but freelancing sites like Fiverr are quickly noticing the gap in the market. They recently launched a new category dedicated to AI-related services after searches increased by 1,400% over six months on their platform for these specialists.

Focusing on Contingent Talent, First

While generative AI will affect contingent workers’ day-to-day schedules, their experience of hiring processes is also expected to change.

Increasingly, HR teams are turning to generative AI to generate summaries of virtual interviews and gain insights into candidates’ skills, experience, and potential.

Algorithms can analyze huge amounts of data, identify patterns, and make predictions about the likelihood of candidates’ success, giving HR leaders an unbiased view of candidates. This should speed up recruitment and onboarding processes for contingent workers too.

Overall, generative AI is set to change business operations across many industries. And many company leaders are questioning whether the technology may aid or disrupt their value chain, way of working, and budgets.

And that automatically impacts contingent workers, who can either evolve their offerings and seek out the positives or be left behind. Ultimately, technological advances create as many, if not more, job opportunities as they automate.

Author Bio

Sanjoe Jose is the CEO and Co-founder of Talview.