In the second half of the 20th century (which Fortune founder Henry Luce called “the American century”), MBA and law school degree programs were the ticket to a great office job and the path to the American Dream. The 21st century begs the question, “What would happen if all office jobs were automated?”
In a recent conversation, financial timesMustafa Suleiman, CEO of Microsoft AI, announced another prediction in a series of AI leaders’ predictions: white-collar jobs are on the brink of fundamental transformation thanks to AI. His timeline is 18 months before law school and MBA graduates, as well as many less qualified graduates, fall from grace.
Suleiman predicted that AI will provide “human-level performance in most, if not all, specialized tasks.” He said most jobs that involve “sitting in front of a computer” will be fully automated by AI within the next 12 to 18 months, citing accounting, legal, marketing and even project management as vulnerable. Suleiman’s warning was reflected in this week’s viral essay, a version of which luckAI researcher Matt Schumer compared this moment to February 2020, when the pandemic was about to hit the United States. But Schumer says this will be even more dramatic.
Suleiman cited the exponential increase in computing power as a red flag that AI could replace large numbers of experts. As “computing” advances, models will be able to code better than most human programmers, he said. Schumer and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently wrote about their concerns and even sadness at seeing their life’s work rapidly becoming obsolete.
If Suleiman’s warning sounds familiar, it’s because it was from early 2025, when many CEOs issued similar apocalyptic prophecies. Last May, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned that half of entry-level white-collar jobs could disappear due to AI. Ford CEO Jim Farley said AI will cut white-collar jobs in the U.S. by half.
in atlantic oceanJosh Tyrangiel compared CEOs’ recent silence on the matter to watching a “shark fin break water” and argued that the United States is unprepared for the coming AI disruption.
But the pulse is starting again, with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk saying at Davos last month that artificial general intelligence (AI that matches or exceeds human-level intelligence) could arrive as early as this year.
The current state of AI and white-collar work
But while AI experts have hypothesized when AI could disrupt white-collar jobs, so far the technology has had only a modest impact on professional services. A 2025 Thomson Reuters report found that lawyers, accountants, and auditors are experimenting with AI for targeted tasks such as document reviews and routine analysis. However, while the results showed a small increase in productivity, they stopped short of showing large job losses.
In fact, in some cases, AI has the opposite effect of reducing worker productivity. A recent study by Model Evaluation and Threat Research, a nonprofit technology research organization, on the impact of AI on software developers found that the technology actually increases workers’ work time by 20%.
The economic benefits are largely confined to the technology industry, suggesting that AI’s disruption in the real economy is limited. Big Tech companies’ profit margins rose more than 20% in the fourth quarter of 2025, while the broader Bloomberg 500 index saw little change, according to a recent study by Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management. A few days ago, Throck cited Wall Street’s consensus expectations for the S&P 500, saying, “Investors don’t believe that AI will improve returns outside of the tech sector.”
Still, there are early signs that AI will lead to job losses. According to employment consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, about 55,000 layoffs in 2025 will be related to AI. Microsoft laid off 15,000 employees last year, although it did not cite AI as a reason for the layoffs. In a memo released last July following the layoffs, CEO Satya Nadella said the company needed to “reimagine our mission for a new era.”
Despite marginal reductions in the workforce, the market is reacting violently to the potential of technology. Last week, software stocks suffered a sharp selloff on concerns about automation (what analysts called the “SaaSpocalypse,” referring to the software-as-a-service sector). The drop came after Anthropic and OpenAI announced the launch of an agent AI system for enterprises that performs many of the key functions for SaaS organizations.
Mr. Suleiman’s vision for Microsoft
Suleiman is adamant about the potential of this technology. He believes productivity will increase across the white-collar industry as organizations will be able to adapt technology to perform the jobs they need. “Creating a new model is like creating a podcast or writing a blog,” he said. “We will be able to design AI tailored to the requirements of every institution, organization, and individual on the planet.”
Suleiman said his core mission as administrator of Microsoft AI is to achieve “superintelligence.” The CEO wants to achieve AI independence and reduce dependence on OpenAI, instead prioritizing building an independent model for the company.
“After all, this is the most important technology of our time,” Suleiman said. “We need to develop our own fundamental models that are at the absolute frontier.”
