The Automation "Handshake": How Mobile Devices Make It Happen

By John Graff, Xplore

Automation is happening quickly across all industries, no real news there. But McKinsey Global Institute, in a new report, has identified new areas of work that are now susceptible to automation. We all know that manual, repetitive work has long been a target of automation. But high-skill activities that require interaction with machines will also benefit from automation; or, perhaps better described as the act of converting skilled workers into information workers.

Specifically, the McKinsey Global Institute report indicates the following (with points I want to emphasis in bold):

“The activities most susceptible to automation are physical ones in highly structured and predictable environments, as well as data collection and processing . In the United States, these activities make up 51 percent of activities in the economy, accounting for almost $2.7 trillion in wages. They are most prevalent in manufacturing, accommodation and food service, and retail trade.

“And it’s not just low-skill, low-wage work that could be automated; middle-skill and high-paying, high-skill occupations, too, have a degree of automation potential. As processes are transformed by the automation of individual activities , people will perform activities that complement the work that machines do , and vice versa.”