If you dont believe our world of work is changing, you must either have your head stuck in the ground or had one too many conferences cancelled due to the coronavirus.

The platform economy is alive and well and has shaped our personal and business lives for at least the last decade. Up until recently platforms have been built on the foundation of SMAC technologies - Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud - and with great effect. One only has to look at the worlds most valuable companies including Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, and Alibaba. These companies have fully embraced the SMAC stack and have created levels of economic value, the like of which has seldom been seen in history.

However, change has arrived and for companies to remain competitive, SMAC no longer fits the bill.

Today, organisations are pivoting their businesses around ABEQ: artificial intelligence, blockchain (or distributed ledgers), enhanced reality and quantum computing. Of course, the most divisive of these technologies is artificial intelligence (AI).Business leaders, politicians and modern day soothsayers are all weighing in on the impact of this technology, with many believing AI will replace vast swathes of the modern workforce leaving us with a ruling elite.

One just has to look at the media to realise the state of paranoia. The percentage of jobs feared to be lost in the face of AI range from 25% to 47%. Even at the lower end, these estimates would cripple global economies and would lead to mass unemployment and potentially global unrest. However, how accurate are they?

We at Cognizants Center for the Future of Work (CFoW) believe that many of these studies fail to realise one key element that has defined all three of the last industrial revolutions. New technologies lead to new job creation. Our findings indicate that digital technologies will result in 13% new job creation, mitigating the 12% of job replacement these technologies will cause. In addition, 75% of jobs will remain but be drastically enhanced by man-machine collaboration. Yes, the disruption of these jobs will cause short- to medium-term impacts to many workers, but it is far from the doomsday scenario painted by many futurists.

The next question is: what will these new jobs be? Cognizants CFoW sought to understand exactly that and studied the latest macro, micro and socio economic trends, resulting in two report: 21 Jobs of the Future and 21 More Jobs of the Future.

These two reports name the exact jobs that will likely emerge in the future, and provide a timescale and tech centricity of when and how these jobs will occur. Spoiler: not all jobs of the future will require massive technical expertise. Instead, jobs will pivot around three core pillars that are currently shaping modern society: coaching, caring and connecting.

Heres why:

Ultimately, it is very easy to be caught up in the dystopian fear of the unknown future. However, instead we need to have a fascination with the unknown.

About the authorMicheal Cook is senior manager responsible for developing thought leadership in Cognizants EMEA Center for the Future of Work - a fulltime think tank of Cognizant Technical Services. Now based in London, Michael was born in Johannesburg and earned his Bachelors of Economics and Econometrics and Post Graduate qualification of International Trade and Development from the University of Johannesburg.

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No, AI won't steal your job. Here's why. - ITWeb