Microsoft AI CEO predicts ‘most, if not all’ white-collar tasks will be automated by AI within 18 months

• Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Süleyman said artificial intelligence will reach “human-level performance” in white-collar work.

• He predicts that most tasks in this area could be automated within the next 12 to 18 months.

• Many leaders in the AI ​​industry have warned of the impending mass business change.

Microsoft’s AI CEO joins the chorus of executives who say they foresee widespread job automation driven by AI.

Mustafa SuleimanThe Microsoft AI chief said in an interview with the Financial Times that he predicts that most, if not every task in white-collar fields will be automated by AI within the next year or year and a half.

“I think we will perform at a human level in most, if not all, professional tasks,” Suleiman said in the interview published Wednesday. “So white-collar jobs where you sit in front of a computer, whether you’re a lawyer, an accountant, a project manager or a marketer, many of those tasks will be fully automated by an AI in the next 12 to 18 months.”

The CEO said this trend is already observable in software engineering, where employees use “AI-powered coding for the vast majority of their code generation.”

“It’s a very different relationship with technology, and that’s happened in the last six months,” he said.

The rapid development of artificial intelligence over the last half-decade has led to real, documented changes in how some white-collar jobs are performed.

Business Insider recently reported: “AI fatigue” It has hit software engineering: Technology has unlocked productivity, but it has also paved the way for burnout as employees are expected to take on more tasks simultaneously.

Microsoft is one of the leading companies behind the effort to introduce artificial intelligence in the workplace. Products similar to Copilot and invest OpenAI and Anthropic.

Some leaders and pioneers in the field of artificial intelligence say that artificial intelligence could go so far as to replace the entire workforce.

Computer scientist Stuart Russell, co-author of one of the world’s most respected books on artificial intelligence, said in an interview last year that political leaders were examining the issue. “80 percent unemployment” From surgeons to CEOs, jobs are at risk of being replaced by artificial intelligence.

Dario Amodei, CEO and co-founder of Anthropic, previously said that artificial intelligence could destroy half of humanity. entry level white collar jobs.

“We, as manufacturers of this technology, have a duty and obligation to be honest about the future,” Amodei told Axios in an interview. “I don’t think it’s on people’s radar.”