CEOs Start Saying Quiet Part Out Loud: AI Will Wipe Out Jobs

CEOs are no longer dodging the question of whether AI takes jobs. Now they are giving predictions of how deep those cuts could go.

- Chip Cutter & Haley Zimmerman

"Artificial intelligence is going to replace literally half of all white-collar workers in the U.S.," Ford Motor Chief Executive Jim Farley said in an interview last week with author Walter Isaacson at the Aspen Ideas Festival. "AI will leave a lot of white-collar people behind."

At JPMorgan Chase, Marianne Lake, CEO of the bank's massive consumer and community business, told investors in May that she could see its operations head count falling by 10% in the coming years as the company uses new AI tools.

The comments echo recent job warnings from executives at Amazon, Anthropic and other companies.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a note to employees in June that he expected the company's overall corporate workforce to be smaller in the coming years because of the "once-in-a-lifetime" AI technology.

"We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs," Jassy said.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in May that half of all entry-level jobs could disappear in one to five years, resulting in U.S. unemployment of 10% to 20%, according to an interview with Axios. He urged company executives and government officials to stop "sugarcoating" the situation.