Months after warning AI would automate most white-collar work, Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman clarifies: I never meant jobs, but…

Mustafa Suleyman would like everyone to read his February prediction again, this time with a highlighter. The Microsoft AI CEO, who told the Financial Times that most white-collar tasks would be fully automated by AI within 12 to 18 months, now says he never predicted job losses at all—the operative word, he insists, was always “tasks.” The clarification came during an episode of The Verge’s Decoder podcast on Monday, where Suleyman argued that AI will help lawyers, accountants and project managers work faster rather than push them out of work entirely.

“Sending an email, having a conversation with a colleague, putting together a PowerPoint—sub-tasks will increasingly become digitized, automated,” Suleyman said on the show.