Asger Risom
Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman predicts that within 18 months, artificial intelligence could achieve human-level performance across most professional tasks, potentially automating large swaths of white-collar work.
One of the world’s top AI executives has put a striking deadline on the future of office work.
According to Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman, many professional roles could be overtaken by artificial intelligence far sooner than expected.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Suleyman predicted “human-level performance on most, if not all professional tasks” within the next year to 18 months. Jobs involving “sitting down at a computer” — including accounting, legal work, marketing and project management — are particularly exposed, he said.
The warning adds to a series of forecasts from industry leaders who argue that white-collar employment is on the brink of sweeping disruption.
A familiar alarm
Suleyman’s comments echo recent statements from other executives. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned last year that AI could eliminate half of entry-level white-collar roles. Ford CEO Jim Farley suggested AI could halve US white-collar jobs.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has also said artificial general intelligence could arrive as early as this year.
Suleyman pointed to rapid increases in computing power as a key driver. As “compute” expands, he argued, AI models will outperform most human coders and scale into other professional fields.
Reality check
Despite the bold predictions, evidence of widespread displacement remains limited.
A 2025 Thomson Reuters report found that lawyers and accountants are testing AI for specific tasks such as document review, but gains have so far been incremental. A study by nonprofit Model Evaluation and Threat Research (METR) found that AI tools made software developers’ tasks take 20% longer in some cases.
Research from Apollo Global Management chief economist Torsten Slok showed profit margin gains largely concentrated in Big Tech, while the broader Bloomberg 500 Index saw little change.
Still, employment consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that around 55,000 job cuts in 2025 were AI-related, suggesting early signs of impact.
Microsoft’s push
Suleyman said his goal is to build independent foundation models and reduce Microsoft’s reliance on OpenAI.
“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, organization, and person on the planet.”
“This after all is the most important technology of our time,” he added. “We have to develop our own foundation models which are at the absolute frontier.”
Whether the 18-month timeline proves accurate remains uncertain. But Suleyman’s forecast underscores the growing belief within the tech industry that AI’s impact on white-collar work may accelerate rapidly.
Sources: Financial Times; Fortune; Thomson Reuters; METR; Apollo Global Management; Challenger, Gray & Christmas
