Adopt AI or lose job: Employees learning new tech are not at risk, says Dubai executive

Khaleej Times

23-05-2025

Do you fear losing your job to artificial intelligence (AI)?
It is not AI that will take your job, but people who learn and embrace the new technology will. This stark warning came from Dr Deepak Renganathan, vice president of digital marketing at Damac Properties, who also authored a book on AI.
'We are basically in a catch-22 situation with the speed at which AI is going. There are about 5-10 per cent of people embracing it. They are running forward and learning AI. They are embracing AI in their organisation. Around 90 per cent of people are left behind, either because they don't know, are afraid and sceptical, or are theorists. When something new comes, there is always a fear. But it's important to understand that all of these have paved the way for new industries and more jobs. But those who succeeded it, they embraced it. People don't lose jobs to AI, but to people who embrace AI,' said Dr Renganathan during TRIBE – The CMO Connect 2025 event hosted by Khaleej Times on Wednesday.
The key highlights of the one-day conference were the exclusive announcement of the GCC's Most Influential Marketing Leaders, recognising excellence, innovation, and leadership in the field. The conference also provided opportunities for attendees to foster strategic partnerships and engage with top marketing visionaries.
While giving a presentation, he noted that there are numerous roles that AI agents play for various departments.
'An HR agent, which is already in place in many organisations, can actually auto-generate job descriptions, post the listings across platforms, sync all the requisitions in place, do resume parsing, shortlist candidates, conduct interviews by themselves with the candidates and the interview feedback is transcribed which goes into the system,' said Dr Renganathan, author of AI – The Ultimate Marketing Game Changer.
"The next level can also be another AI, you know, specifically focusing and screening the candidate and then it can even give an offer to the candidates. It can track all the reporting metrics. This is exactly what it can do,' he said, adding that this is not specific to HR, but applies to marketing as well.
He pointed out that there are autonomous learning-based models.
'Autonomous models are very risky unless you have a very sophisticated process in place and you clearly set aside the rules where the AI can actually make decisions for the company. Sometimes it's really good because it saves time and clears the hierarchy as well,' he added.