The speed of AI development exceeds expectations, and McKinsey's report predicts human-level capabilities before 2030.

McKinsey's latest AI research report indicates that the development speed of artificial intelligence technology far exceeds expectations, and it is expected to reach human levels by 2030. This prediction is more optimistic than the report from 2017.

The report focuses on the rapid rise of generative AI and its profound impact on the economy and society. Generative AI is defined as applications built on large language models, with significant breakthroughs in various fields such as images, videos, audio, and code.

From an economic perspective, if widely applied across various industries, generative AI could bring a value of $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion to the global economy each year. This represents a growth of 15% to 40% compared to predictions made in 2017.

The report analyzes the potential impact of generative AI on approximately 850 occupations. Experts simulated various scenarios to estimate when generative AI could perform over 2,100 tasks that make up the global economy. The results show that generative AI could create a total value of $6.1 trillion to $7.9 trillion for the global economy each year.

In terms of specific applications, customer operations, marketing and sales, software engineering, and research and development account for 75% of the total value of generative AI applications. Generative AI can also bring more value to the entire company by improving enterprise knowledge management systems.

The report expects that, based on the current performance of generative AI, its capabilities will reach human level faster than previously estimated in various aspects. For example, the time for natural language understanding to reach the human average level has been moved up from the originally estimated 2027 to 2023.

Experts predict that generative AI will have the greatest impact on knowledge work, especially in activities involving decision-making and collaboration. The potential for automating professional expertise has increased by 34 percentage points, and the potential for automating management and talent development has risen from 16% in 2017 to 49% in 2023.

In the face of rapid AI development, the report calls for all stakeholders to actively respond. Business leaders need to consider how to leverage the potential value of generative AI and manage risks; government policymakers need to formulate corresponding policies to support workforce transformation; the general public needs to pay attention to the development of new technologies, seeking a balance between convenience and impact.

Overall, this report provides a comprehensive analysis of the significant impact of the generative AI explosion on the socio-economy, offering important references for various sectors to respond to the arrival of the AI era.