NOVEMBER 1 — Sundar Pichai believes AI could one day do his job, running Google.

In a BBC interview on 18 November 2025, Pichai was asked whether an AI agent could eventually do his job. His answer was striking: “I think what a CEO does is maybe one of the easier things for AI to do one day.”

Not a warehouse job. Not a data-entry job. His job. CEO of Google.

When the man at the helm of one of the world's most powerful technology companies admits that AI could one day do his job, it is time for the rest of us to sit up and take notice.

Bill Gates had an equally stark warning. In an interview with The Observer, published in late October 2026, he described AI as an “evolutionary event”, a transformation in which humans may no longer be the most intelligent beings on the planet.

His prediction for the workplace is even more unsettling. AI could replace not just routine tasks but skills of invention, white-collar work and, with humanoid robots, eventually physical labour.

Gates believes businesses have a powerful incentive to replace people with machines. As he puts it: “Hire the robot, fire the human and don't look back.”

Elon Musk takes the prediction several steps further. In a July 2026 interview with The Economist, he suggested that AI could soon perform almost any digital job better than humans, with humanoid robots eventually extending automation into physical work. He believes employment could become optional, with people working by choice rather than necessity.

But his vision of a future of abundance raises a fundamental question: who will own the wealth generated by machines, and who will benefit from it?

That is the heart of the problem. AI could generate extraordinary wealth while leaving millions of workers struggling to find their place in the new economy.

These warnings are no longer confined to boardrooms or technology conferences. They have entered offices, homes and online chats. Beneath the talk of innovation and productivity lies a growing unease: Will there still be a place for me when AI takes over?

The payroll data are beginning to show where some of this pressure is emerging.

A Stanford Digital Economy Lab study, updated in August 2026, found that young workers aged 22 to 25 are falling behind in occupations most exposed to AI. The impact is showing up not in a wave of layoffs, but in the jobs that never materialised.

Not because they were fired. Because they were never hired.

Which raises a difficult question: if AI writes the first draft, prepares the first brief and produces the first analysis, where does the human learn to do the second? How will we train tomorrow's accountants, lawyers and managers if we remove today's training ground?

Pichai's answer is that people must adapt. But adaptation is easy to advocate when you are a CEO. It is a very different proposition when you have spent years mastering a profession, only to find that software can now perform your tasks in seconds.

The threat extends beyond job losses. AI may affect workers' pay and bargaining power even before their jobs disappear. The Economist, in an article titled Ignore AI and Ask for That Pay Rise, raises the concern that fear of technological replacement may itself suppress wages.

If you believe a chatbot is waiting for your seat, do you ask for a raise? Do you leave for something better? Or do you stay quiet, grateful simply to have a job?

So are we heading for mass unemployment? Not yet.

Stanford found no evidence of widespread, economy-wide job displacement associated with AI. And the widely quoted World Economic Forum forecast of 92 million jobs displaced and 170 million created by 2030 covers several forces reshaping employment, including technological change, demographic shifts and the green transition. It is not an AI-only forecast.

Exposure to AI does not automatically mean a job will disappear. Some roles will be transformed, while others may lose tasks or eventually disappear. The uncertainty is itself becoming a source of anxiety.

We've seen this before. When ATMs became widespread in the 1980s, many predicted the end of the bank teller. They were only partly right. ATMs reduced the number of tellers needed at individual branches, but they also lowered operating costs, allowing banks to open more branches.

But AI is not simply another step in automation.

It is a technological force unlike anything humanity has encountered before. AI is rewriting the rules of work itself. It can write, reason, analyse, create and make decisions, abilities once considered uniquely human. It is sweeping across professions, industries and disciplines, challenging not just how we work but what we once believed only the human mind could do.

We are no longer talking about machines replacing human hands. We are talking about machines that increasingly appear to think and respond like intelligent beings, challenging the very boundaries between human intelligence and artificial capability.

Gates is not simply sounding an alarm. He is also proposing ways to manage the upheaval. He believes certain jobs should remain reserved for humans, particularly where human involvement is essential. He has also suggested that governments consider taxing AI use, including the tokens businesses purchase to run AI systems.

But policy alone will not be enough.

Businesses must look beyond the savings AI can deliver and consider the people whose livelihoods may be affected. Governments, in turn, must ensure that the gains from AI are shared more widely through retraining, social protection and policies that help workers adapt. Employers must also find ways to give young people the experience traditionally gained through entry-level jobs.

For young people entering the workforce, the message is not to fear AI but to understand it. Beyond being a work tool, AI is now a guide to learning, a sounding board for ideas and even a source of companionship.

Being AI-savvy will become as important as being digitally literate: learning to use these tools, question their outputs and understand their limitations. Technical knowledge alone will not be enough. Critical thinking, creativity, judgement and the ability to work alongside intelligent systems will matter. The future will belong to those who know how to work intelligently with AI, not ignore it.

AI is not waiting for us to catch up. Its capabilities are multiplying, its reach expanding and its pace accelerating. What seemed impossible yesterday is routine today.

This is the real disruption. AI is changing the world of work even as we debate what it might do. By the time governments regulate it, businesses adapt and education systems catch up, the technology may already have moved on.

That brings us back to Sundar Pichai. If AI could one day perform many of the responsibilities of a CEO, what would leadership itself look like in the future?

The question is no longer whether AI will change the world of work. It is whether we can keep pace with a technology that is changing faster than our ability to understand its consequences.

*This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.