Zoom CEO Eric Yuan has joined the chorus of tech leaders predicting that artificial intelligence will reshape the way people work—so much so that he envisions a future where employees only clock in three or four days a week.
But in the same breath, he admitted that not all workers will share in this utopia. Many may find themselves out of a job altogether, according to Fortune.
“I feel like if A.I. can make all of our lives better, why do we need to work for five days a week?” Yuan told The New York Times in a recent interview. “Every company will support three days, four days a week. I think this ultimately frees up everyone’s time.”
His forecast echoes Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon—power players who all believe that AI will ultimately compress the workweek. Yet, as Yuan cautioned, it will also erase some jobs in the process, particularly entry-level engineering roles that AI systems are already capable of performing.
The Split Among Tech Leaders
The future of work under AI remains deeply divisive.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has warned of a looming white-collar jobs “armageddon,” arguing that automation will hollow out professional ranks. By contrast, Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis has been more optimistic, predicting a “golden era” of abundance where AI augments human capability rather than replacing it.
Yuan, however, threads the middle ground. He admits that job losses are inevitable but argues that history shows new roles will emerge.
“Whenever there’s a technology paradigm shift, some job opportunities are gone, but it will create some new opportunities,” he said.
Ford CEO Jim Farley and Klarna chief Sebastian Siemiatkowski share this more pragmatic view, acknowledging the disruption while highlighting potential new work managing AI systems themselves. Huang, for his part, even contends that AI could expand employment rather than shrink it. “Not only did productivity go up, employment also went up” in past industrial revolutions, he told CNN.
The Case for a Shorter Workweek
Yuan’s vision may sound radical in the U.S., where hustle culture dominates, but it mirrors experiments already underway in Europe. Countries like the U.K. and Iceland have trialed four-day workweeks with major success, reporting lower burnout and higher productivity.
American companies are testing the waters too. When performance coaching firm Exos cut one workday from its schedule, employee burnout halved while productivity jumped 24%. The results have strengthened calls that AI-powered efficiency gains could be redirected toward work-life balance rather than endless output.
Gates, in a February appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, echoed the sentiment. “What will jobs be like? Should we just work like 2 or 3 days a week? If you zoom out, the purpose of life is not just to do jobs,” he said.
Dimon has suggested that future generations will reap both health and lifestyle dividends. “Your children are going to live to 100 and not have cancer because of technology,” he told Bloomberg TV in 2023. “And literally they’ll probably be working 3 and a half days a week.”
Even Huang, who foresees compressed schedules, predicts busier workloads overall. “We’re just at the beginning of the AI revolution,” he told interviewers. “If industries continue to adopt at the current rapid rate, it could probably bring about a four-day workweek—but we’re going to be busier in the future than now.”
Potential Implications
Looking ahead, if AI adoption continues at its current breakneck pace, its potential implications diverge, with analysts pointing to a few possible outcomes.
Productivity Gains Lead to Shorter Workweeks
Companies could redirect automation-driven efficiency into work-life balance, with three or four-day workweeks becoming a corporate norm. The model tested in Europe and by companies like Exos could gain traction in the U.S., transforming work culture.
Productivity Gains Fuel Higher Output, Not Leisure
Executives like Huang warn that businesses may instead use AI to demand more from fewer employees. In this world, a four-day work week could mean cramming five days of output into four, exacerbating stress rather than relieving it.
Job Polarization and Market Upheaval
As AI takes over tasks from coding to administrative work, entry-level and routine jobs may disappear fastest. This could widen inequality, with displaced workers struggling to reskill while high-skilled professionals leverage AI tools to multiply productivity.
The Optimistic “Golden Era”
If AI unlocks new industries the way electricity and the internet once did, employment could expand. Jobs managing digital agents, overseeing AI systems, and building AI-enhanced services may offset the losses, fueling an era of economic abundance.
The Balancing Act
However, what’s clear is that the rise of AI assistants and chatbots has already begun reshaping expectations. Whether this shift results in shorter workweeks, mass job losses, or both will depend not just on the technology itself, but on the policies, corporate strategies, and cultural choices that follow.
Yuan noted that the trade-off is unavoidable: “For some jobs, like entry-level engineers, we can use A.I. to write code. However, you still need to manage that code. You also create a lot of digital agents, and you need someone to manage those agents.”
The question now is whether society leans into the “golden era” of abundance or braces for a white-collar shakeout. Either way, the five-day workweek is expected by many not to survive the AI revolution.
