Artificial Intelligence, high-speed mobile internet, big data analytics and cloud technology are the four key technologies that will shape the world over the next four years says the top global business forum.

A new report from the World Economic Forum (WEF), The Future of Jobs Report 2018, says the years between now and 2022 will be a hotbed for high-tech investment by companies across every industry.

While the report finds that the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” will create more new jobs than it destroys, artificial intelligence will have a significant impact in the next four years.

Here are six key predictions from the WEF report:

1. Adoption and investment in technologies like AI, virtual and augmented reality, and machine learning will be almost ubiquitous; 85 per cent of businesses say they’ll be using the latter by 2022.

2. Robotic drones and non-humanoid land robots will graduate from high-tech military applications to everyday industries. More than a third of businesses say they will invest in roboticised machinery.

3. Robots and AI will slash jobs — as many as an estimated 75 million — but these will be replaced by 133 million new roles.

4. Machines won’t stop at taking over mundane takes. They will also address complex tasks such as reasoning and decision-making, and there will be a shift in the human-machine “frontier” on existing jobs.

5. New jobs will arise in expected and unexpected areas. Rising jobs include data analysts and robotics engineers, but distinctly ‘human’ roles such as customer services workers, organisational specialists and trainers will also be in demand as companies look to provide human faces for customers.

6. Because of rapid technological changes, the skills needed to do many jobs will change quickly leaving the vast majority of the workforce in need of retraining or up-skilling. The report estimates a 42 per cent shift in the average skill set needed by 2022. Most companies expect to hire new staff with all the skills they need rather than retrain their existing staff.

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