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Artificial intelligence could soon allow employees to clock in for only three or four days each week, according to Zoom CEO Eric Yuan, who said the technology will also erase some jobs.
Yuan’s comments, made in an interview with The New York Times, placed him among a group of business leaders who believe chatbots and digital agents will reshape how people work.
“If AI can make all of our lives better, why do we need to work for five days a week?” Yuan said. “Every company will support three days, four days a week. I think this ultimately frees up everyone’s time.”
Business leaders split on AI’s impact
Opinions remain divided on how automation will transform employment. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has spoken of a potential “white-collar jobs armageddon,” while Demis Hassabis of Google DeepMind has described a “golden era” of abundance.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has suggested AI will eliminate the need for humans in “most things” within 10 years, even asking on television earlier this year: “What will jobs be like? Should we just work like two or three days a week?”
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang predicted AI could “probably” bring about a four-day workweek, though he warned the shorter schedule might be more intense, adding, “We’re going to be busier in the future than now.”
Financial leaders have also pointed to work-life changes. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon forecasted in 2023 that the technology would cut workloads while replacing some roles. “Your children are going to live to 100 and not have cancer because of technology,” he told Bloomberg TV. “And literally they’ll probably be working 3 and a half days a week.”
Jobs erased, new roles created
The Zoom boss acknowledged that widespread job losses would accompany any AI shift, saying, “Whenever there’s a technology paradigm shift, some job opportunities are gone, but it will create some new opportunities.”
He noted that roles such as entry-level engineering may be reduced because AI can now generate code, but new responsibilities will arise around managing both that output and the growing number of digital agents.
Other executives, including Ford’s Jim Farley and Klarna’s Sebastian Siemiatkowski, have echoed concerns about automation displacing workers. Yet Huang argued that history suggests otherwise, pointing to productivity gains in the tech sector. “Over the course of the last 300 years, 100 years, 60 years, even, in the era of computers, not only did productivity go up, employment also went up,” he said. “If we were more productive, we could realize that better.”
The debate over AI’s impact goes on, but the prospect of shorter workweeks - even with fewer jobs to go around - has clearly now become part of mainstream leadership thinking.
