Super staff resilient among AI job security fears

Superannuation fund employees are reporting the lowest level of concern around being replaced by AI staff.

Across the industry, superannuation funds are understood to be spending millions on developing AI chatbots and tools to boost member engagement and personalisation.

For example, Australia’s largest super fund AustralianSuper is seeking to be the ‘thought leader’ in the generative AI space and has established a dedicated AI engineering team.

The fund set a target of boosting productivity by 5 per cent company-wide through AI implementation but the fund anticipated this productivity increase would more than offset the initial technology investment.

But when it comes to how this usage is affecting staff, super employees were more relaxed than industry peers.

A survey of over 1,000 individuals working in financial services by the Finance Sector Union (FSU) found the introduction of AI tools was a concern for employees regarding their future job security. 
The proportion concerned about AI threatening their jobs stood at 70 per cent of respondents, up from 60 per cent in the previous year. 

However, workers in the superannuation funds were the least concerned by the possibilities and felt confident their job would be retained compared to worked in other areas such as at the big four banks. 

Only 46 per cent were reporting job security fears, compared to the 70 per cent industry average and 81 per cent for workers at Commonwealth Bank.

While staff were relaxed, the FSU noted employer transparency was tentative with almost three-quarters of staff saying their employer had failed to discuss how AI would impact their organisation. Some 41 per cent said they were yet to receive any training or information from their employer about AI in the workplace.

“AI should be used to support employees, speed up their daily work and not replace them. AI is not human, and there are huge discrepancies in its analysis. There is human intervention needed to verify the accuracy. AI should be first piloted for internal use, not for customer service,” the FSU said.

The possibility of job cuts had also been raised by the Financial Services Council (FSC) in an AI report The AI Advantage in October which acknowledged there was a “level of anxiety” around the job impact of AI and employer disclosures.

Three themes were emerging in superannuation, it said:

•With the changes in the industry over the last few years, many organisations are run with extremely lean teams. Therefore, the availability of GenAI tools is expected to be a much-needed productivity boost.

•There is a need to engage the entire workforce on the effective use of GenAI. As with all changes, there are laggards and early adopters, and the focus is on getting the laggards to increase their use of GenAI. 

•GenAI allows organisations to finally address challenges once left in the “too-hard basket.” These complex problems, or new opportunities, are where GenAI is being applied first, well before any impact on jobs.

Like the FSU, it reiterated it is on the funds to communicate with their staff on planned changes and any commitments made to ‘no redundancies’ must be backed by visible behaviour. If a focus is instead on redeploying staff, they should invest in reskilling and training to support staff in future opportunities.

“A common misstep we have observed is that some leaders have reassured staff that GenAI would not replace their jobs by pointing to current limitations, quoting hallucinations or examples of poor output. This may work in the short term, but it is weak messaging. GenAI tools are improving quickly, and today’s limitations will not hold tomorrow.

“[…]high volume client service and customer call centres are likely to be one area that many superannuation funds and investment managers focus on and may result in a change in role for those working in these areas. Therefore, a stronger message is this: GenAI is powerful, and it will only get better. But humans remain central. We will redesign our organisations to put people at the centre: where GenAI augments work, not replaces it.”

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