Amid the accelerating rise of artificial intelligence, Microsoft CEO Mustafa Suleyman has issued a stark warning: many white-collar jobs could disappear within the next 12 to 18 months as AI systems become more capable, according to a Financial Times report.
Suleyman also remarked that rapid advances in AI could transform professional practices across sectors such as law, accounting, marketing, and engineering.
Recently, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei claimed that software engineering will become obsolete in 12 months.
Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman said the company is developing what he described as “professional-grade AGI,” referring to AI systems designed to handle everyday tasks performed by knowledge workers.
“I think that we’re going to have a human-level performance on most, if not all, professional tasks,” Suleyman said in the interview that was published Wednesday. “So white-collar work, where you’re sitting down at a computer, either being a lawyer or an accountant or a project manager or a marketing person — most of those tasks will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months.”
Business Insider recently reported that ‘AI fatigue’ has hit software engineering: the technology has unlocked productivity but also exhaustion, as workers are expected to take on more work at once.
According to the report, Suleyman said Microsoft is pursuing “true self-sufficiency” in AI following last year’s restructuring of its relationship with OpenAI.
While Microsoft retains access to OpenAI’s advanced models, it is now building its own foundation models using large-scale computing infrastructure and internal AI teams. The company plans to launch its in-house models later this year and is increasing investment in data, chips, and data centres to support long-term AI development.
