- Microsoft AI chief says white-collar jobs could be threatened by AI
- A major change could occur in the next 12 to 18 months
- Mustafa Suleyman is the latest in a series of tech CEOs to sound the alarm about the effects on jobs.
Microsoft’s AI chief said he’s confident AI will advance to the point where it can replace white-collar jobs in the next 12 to 18 months.
Speaking in a YouTube interview with the Financial TimesMustafa Suleyman discussed the company’s efforts toward “artificial intelligence,” a term he coined for the next step toward artificial general intelligence (AGI).
“I think we’re going to have human-level performance in most, if not all, job tasks,” Suleyman said. “So white-collar work, where you’re sitting in front of a computer – whether it’s, you know, a lawyer, an accountant, a project manager or a marketer – most of those tasks will be fully automated by AI in the next 12 to 18 months.”
Risk related to AI jobs
Suleyman also expressed his belief that AI tools will be useful in almost every field, as Microsoft moves more toward “humanistic superintelligence.”
“There will be billions of digital minds,” he said. “There will be many, many different model lineages. Creating a new model is like creating a podcast or writing a blog: it will be possible to design AI that meets your needs for every institution, organization and person on the planet.”
Suleyman’s views have been echoed by many other technology leaders in recent months, reflecting a broader shift in the industry as AI becomes more common in workplaces across the world.
In May 2025, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei also warned the U.S. government about the risk AI poses to white-collar jobs, predicting that up to half of all entry-level positions could be filled by AI, leading to unemployment of up to 20% over the next five years.
“It seems crazy, and people just don’t believe it,” Amodei said, emphasizing how AI has the potential to affect society in positive and negative ways; “Cancer is cured, the economy is growing 10% a year, the budget is balanced and 20% of people are out of work.”
“As producers of this technology, we have a duty and obligation to be honest about what’s coming.”
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