The New Needs of Professions Charalampos Z. Patrikakis University of West Attica San Murugesan Western Sydney University BRITE Professional Services Abstract—This article examines the potential impact of widespread adoption digital technologies on professions and the skills set required of existing and emerging new professions, illustrated with some characteristics use cases as examples. & THE DAWN OF the all (smart) things connected, digitally augmented world has changed every- thing, from the way we communicate and socialize to the way we work and do our transactions. The digital world is revolutionizing industry, health- care, and other sectors. Reflecting this trend, new terms such as Industry 4.0, Productivity 4.0, 1 and Society 5.0 2 have emerged and gained acceptance, signifying the impact of the resulting transforma- tion. In this article, we examine the impact digital revolution has and will have on the workforce, as well as the skills which will ensure professional success in the age of automation and artificial intelligence (AI). The fear that technological developments threaten employment and that many jobs, espe- cially routine and mundane jobs that are per- formed by unskilled workers, would not exist is not new. This fear was there even decades ago, when mechanization and mass production were introduced. Since the time of industrialization, maximization of profit through the use of technology has been a key objective, and it is closely linked to the reduction of labor cost. The impact of the digital world is, however, not con- fined to mechanical labor. As the new digital world embraces sensors, actuators, and automa- tion, have the ability to link, talk, and reason over the IoT, and harnesses advances in AI that offer intelligent capabilities, this new wave of techno- logical revolution introduces threats even to jobs that are performed by skilled personnel. There are several examples of threats to skilled jobs. While the changes that progress introduces drive some professions to extinction, they also modify or even create new ones. The invention of cinema, for example, has changed the story-tell- ing-related professions: Novelists still continued to exist, other new professions, closely related to story telling such as script writers and film direc- tors emerged. There is undoubtedly a need for new skills, which will give professionals the ability to adapt and succeed. In the following, we provide brief Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MITP.2019.2963413 Date of current version 12 February 2020. Theme Article: Envisioning Our Future Digital World Theme Article: Envisioning Our Future Digital World January/February 2020 Published by the IEEE Computer Society 1520-9202 ß 2020 IEEE 43