Asger Risom
At Morgan Stanley’s major AI conference, investors and executives repeatedly returned to one unsettling question: what jobs will the next generation have in an AI-driven economy? As AI capabilities accelerate and layoffs tied to automation begin appearing in economic data, the debate is moving from theory to reality.
The world’s most powerful tech executives gathered in San Francisco last week for Morgan Stanley’s annual TMT Conference, showcasing record earnings, soaring valuations and an accelerating artificial intelligence arms race.
But amid the optimism and bold projections, one question kept surfacing among investors and executives alike:
“What will our kids do?”
According to Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, it was the most common question he heard throughout the event. Even as AI breakthroughs dominate headlines and stock markets reward companies investing heavily in the technology, concerns about the future of work — especially for the next generation — loomed large.
The rise of the one-person company
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman did little to ease those concerns.
Speaking at the conference, Altman suggested a future where a single individual — or perhaps a small handful of people — could run an entire company with the help of AI systems.
He had made a similar point days earlier at a summit in India, warning that the world is not fully prepared for the pace of AI progress.
“We are going to have extremely capable models soon,” Altman said. “It’s going to be a faster takeoff than I originally thought.”
The idea of hyper-efficient, AI-driven companies is already being discussed widely in venture capital circles. Some investors are openly speculating about the emergence of the first “one-person unicorn” — a billion-dollar company run almost entirely by a single founder using AI tools.
AI capability is accelerating
The conversation comes as AI models continue to advance at remarkable speed.
OpenAI’s latest model release, GPT-5.4, achieved record scores across several AI benchmarks, reinforcing the sense among analysts that the technology’s capabilities are improving faster than many markets currently reflect.
Meanwhile, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang emphasized the scale of demand for computing power driving the AI boom.
“Compute equals revenue,” Huang said, describing demand for AI infrastructure as “higher than incredibly high.”
Cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services are rapidly expanding their infrastructure, while major AI laboratories are reportedly seeking millions of additional GPUs to support training and deployment of new models.
The layoffs executives can no longer avoid discussing
Unlike previous years, the conference also featured unusually direct discussions about workforce reductions linked to AI adoption.
A Morgan Stanley survey of roughly 1,000 executives across five countries found that companies reported an average net workforce reduction of about four percent over the past year due to AI-driven efficiency gains.
Economists are now beginning to see those effects appear in broader economic data.
University of Chicago economist Alex Imas noted that new aggregate statistics show early signs of productivity improvements linked to artificial intelligence — something that had previously been documented mostly in smaller studies.
That shift has changed the tone of the debate. What once felt like a theoretical concern about automation is increasingly visible in real-world labor data.
A future that excites — and worries — economists
Imas said the rapid progress of AI is both inspiring and unsettling.
“It feels like this is the most exciting time to be alive,” he said. “But at the same time, I have little kids. I’m super worried about what sort of jobs they’re going to have.”
The tension between excitement and anxiety was a recurring theme at the conference.
While many investors expect AI to unlock enormous productivity gains and economic growth, the transition could also reshape labor markets in ways that are difficult to predict.
Winners and losers in an AI economy
Morgan Stanley analysts suggested the economic effects of AI may not be evenly distributed.
Their projections indicate that wealthier consumers — whose investment portfolios benefit from AI-driven market gains — may increase spending, while middle-income households whose jobs are more vulnerable to automation could reduce consumption.
Certain types of assets are expected to hold value better in an AI-dominated economy. These include resources that cannot easily be replicated by algorithms, such as luxury experiences, rare natural materials, proprietary datasets and authentic human interactions.
The bank also warned that increasingly capable AI systems could drive deflation across many industries by dramatically reducing the cost of producing goods and services.
“2026 is gonna be insane”
Perhaps the most dramatic moment of the conference came from an unexpected source.
Jimmy Ba, cofounder of Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI, used a retirement announcement to deliver a stark warning about the pace of progress.
“Recursive self-improvement loops likely do live in the next 12 months,” Ba said, referring to AI systems that can improve their own capabilities.
“2026 is gonna be insane and likely the busiest and most consequential year for the future of our species.”
Several AI executives echoed similar sentiments during the conference, predicting that the next wave of AI breakthroughs could surprise — and possibly shock — investors.
Morgan Stanley analysts said they expect a major leap in AI capabilities to become visible between April and June of this year.
For now, however, the central question raised by the gathering remains unanswered: if machines can increasingly perform human work, what roles will the next generation of workers actually fill?
Sources: Fortune
