Eurozone services sector returned to modest growth in June, PMI shows
CEOs are no longer dodging the question of whether AI takes jobs. Now they are giving predictions of how deep those cuts could go.
“Artificial intelligence is going to replace literally half of all white-collar workers in the U.S.,” Ford Motor F 3.70% 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 JPM 0.55%, 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 AMZN -0.24%, 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.
The Ford CEO’s comments are among the most pointed to date from a large-company U.S. executive outside of Silicon Valley. His remarks reflect an emerging shift in how many executives explain the potential human cost of the technology. Until now, few corporate leaders have wanted to publicly acknowledge the extent to which white-collar jobs could vanish.
In interviews, CEOs often hedge when asked about job losses, noting that innovation historically creates a range of new roles.
In private, though, CEOs have spent months whispering about how their businesses could likely be run with a fraction of the current staff. Technologies, including automation software, AI, and robots, are being rolled out to make operations as lean and efficient as possible.
Professionals will need to accept the reality that few roles will be unchanged by AI, Micha Kaufman, CEO of the freelance marketplace Fiverr, wrote in a memo to his staff this spring.
“This is a wake-up call,” he wrote. “It does not matter if you are a programmer, designer, product manager, data scientist, lawyer, customer support rep, salesperson, or a finance person—AI is coming for you.”
Shopify SHOP -0.70% Chief Executive Tobi Lütke recently told workers that the company wouldn’t make any new hires unless managers could prove artificial intelligence isn’t capable of doing the job.
Some corporate leaders are drawing up plans to consolidate roles further, blurring the jobs of a product manager and software engineer into one position at technology companies, for example. Other companies, such as Covid-vaccine maker Moderna MRNA 5.54%, have asked staffers to launch new products or projects without adding headcount.
“I think it’s going to destroy way more jobs than the average person thinks,” James Reinhart, CEO of the online resale site ThredUp, said at an investor conference in June.
Corporate advisers say executives’ views on AI are changing almost weekly as leaders gain a better sense of what the technology can do—and as they watch their peers more aggressively change hiring plans or flatten corporate structures.
Some tech executives think the fears are overblown. Brad Lightcap, the chief operating officer of OpenAI, told the New York Times’s “Hard Fork” podcast last week that he doesn’t believe the impact on entry-level workers will be as swift and sweeping as some predict. “We have yet to see any evidence that people are kind of wholesale replacing entry-level jobs,” Lightcap said.
He acknowledged, though, that there will be job displacement, and said any new technology can lead to shifts in the labor market.
International Business Machines IBM -1.22% Chief Executive Arvind Krishna has said the company used AI to replace the work of a couple of hundred people in human resources. But, he added, the company hired more programmers and salespeople.
Pascal Desroches, chief financial officer at AT&T, said in an interview last month that much remains unclear about how work will be reshaped by AI and that past technological revolutions have shown that new jobs often emerge.
“It’s hard to say unequivocally, ‘Oh, we’re going to have fewer employees who are going to be more productive,” he said. “We just don’t know.’”
Press freedom advocates are sounding the alarm following Paramount's $16 million settlement with President Trump, arguing the deal sets a dangerous new precedent, particularly for smaller outlets with fewer legal resources.
A steady decline in media trust, coupled with enormous financial challenges, has made the press more vulnerable to political pressure campaigns than ever before.
The deal has drawn outrage from critics who believe Paramount could have won what they believe is a frivolous lawsuit.
- While the size of the agreement is nearly identical to ABC's settlement with Trump last year, Paramount is under fire because its deal comes as the company seeks regulatory approval for its $8 billion merger with Skydance Media.
- Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden and Elizabeth Warren both called the settlement "bribery."
- The Knight Institute said Paramount's legal exposure was "negligible," and argued it should've fought the case in court.
- PEN America, another press freedom group, said Paramount "caved to presidential pressure" and "chose appeasement to bolster its finances."
The Wall Street Journal editorial board on Wednesday noted that this moment feels like a turning point for press freedom.
- "President Trump has taunted the media for years, and some of his jibes are deserved, given the groupthink in most newsrooms. What's happening now, though, is different: The President is using government to intimidate news outlets that publish stories he doesn't like. It's a low move in a free country with a free press," it wrote.
The settlement comes as the administration ramps up its efforts to target the press.
- Most recently, President Trump and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have endorsed the idea of prosecuting CNN for its critical coverage of U.S. strikes in Iran and its immigration reporting.
- President Trump also suggested he could demand journalists reveal their sources in light of the Iran intel leak. In April, the Justice Department repealed protections for journalist-source confidentiality
- The White House has already banned the AP over its editorial standards. It's also pushing Congress to gut funding for public media. The FCC has launched investigations into Comcast/NBCU and Disney/ABC for their DEI policies.
The Paramount settlement is the latest in a slew of recent examples that show just how desperate media companies are to survive political and economic pressure.
- Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, Gannett, and other major media companies have all rolled back diversity, equity, and inclusion policies to mirror the administration's new mandate on DEI.
- The vast majority of America's largest newspapers by circulation are no longer doing presidential endorsements.
- PBS member WNET cut 90 seconds from a documentary last month, in which the film's subject, author, and cartoonist Art Spiegelman criticized Trump, per The Atlantic.
- ABC News dropped longtime correspondent Terry Moran after he criticized President Trump and top aide Stephen Miller in a since-deleted tweet, drawing swift criticism.
Those concessions are happening amid a historic drop in trust of mainstream media, making it harder for newsrooms to rally public support.
- Only 31% of Americans say they have a great deal or a fair amount of trust in the mass media, down from 50% 20 years ago and 40% a decade ago, according to a Gallup survey.