Microsoft AI Chief Mustafa Suleyman has a grim warning for every office worker- Within 18 months…
Microsoft AI Chief Mustafa Suleyman has a grim warning for every office worker- Within 18 months…
Publish Date: 2026-05-16 20:17:00
Source Domain: www.livemint.com
Microsoft AI chief executive Mustafa Suleyman has predicted that artificial intelligence will reach human-level performance across most professional tasks within 18 months, putting lawyers, accountants, marketers and project managers among those most at risk of displacement.
Speaking in a conversation with the Financial Times, Suleyman delivered one of the most precise and sweeping timelines yet from a major technology leader on the pace at which AI will reshape office work. The prediction has reignited a debate that has been building since early 2025, when a chorus of chief executives first began sounding the alarm on white-collar automation.
Why Suleyman Says Accountants, Lawyers and Marketers Are Most Vulnerable
Suleyman predicted “human-level performance on most, if not all professional tasks” being done by AI. Most tasks that involve “sitting down at a computer” will be fully automated by AI within the next year or 18 months, he said, naming accounting, legal, marketing, and even project management as vulnerable
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The Microsoft AI chief cited the exponential growth in computational power as a primary driver. As processing capacity advances, he argued, AI models will be able to write and review code better than most human programmers, with knock-on effects for a wide range of knowledge-based professions.
Suleyman also struck an unexpectedly democratising note on the future of AI deployment. “Creating a new model is going to be like creating a podcast or writing a blog,” he said. “It is going to be possible to design an AI that suits your requirements for every institution, organisation, and person on the planet.”
AI Researchers Compare This Moment to the Days Before Covid Hit
Suleyman’s warning found a parallel in a widely circulated essay by AI researcher Matt Shumer, a version of which was published at Fortune. Shumer compared the current moment to February 2020, in the…
