Experts are starting to agree that AI will replace CEO’s
If you can break a job into roles and tasks you can automate it, and now CEO's are coming into the firing line...
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Griffin, M. (2017) 'Experts are starting to agree that AI will replace CEO’s', 311 Institute, 13 May. Available at: https://www.311institute.com/experts-are-starting-to-agree-that-ai-will-replace-ceos/ (Accessed: 1 October 2026).
There's a saying - if you can describe your job in one sentence then get prepared for it to be automated. Automation has changed society as we know it, and knew it, for centuries now, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) itself, a driving force for automation, is now increasingly being seen as a double edged sword. On the one hand it’s helping us save lives, but on the other it’s helping to automate hundreds of thousands of jobs – and entire companies like Aidyia, a fully autonomous hedge fund.
As a consequence, and with a cacophony of voices, that include the likes of Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and now Alibaba’s Jack Ma, continually telling us to “prepare for more pain than happiness” it’s not too hard for many of us to begin thinking the worst. Ma himself, for example, has spoken at several conferences on the topic, and he believes that “social conflicts in the next three decades will have an impact on all sorts of industries and walks of life,” something that mirrors the European Union’s sentiments “that AI and automation will leave no strata of society untouched.”
In Ma’s case, as you can see in the video above, he feels that many of these social conflicts will arise from the rise of automation and now he’s saying that in 30 years’ time he thinks that the “Time Magazine cover for the best CEO of the year will very likely be a robot. It remembers better than you, it counts faster than you, and it won’t be angry with competitors.”
Aren’t CEO’s already robots? Anyway, and if you’re thinking of a cover that has an actual robot on it then you might be disappointed – in the future it’s more than likely, as we’re already seeing today with companies like Aiydia above, and Bridgewater Associates who are busy at the moment automating their entire management team, that the CEO “robot” running the company will be AI software… and there you all were thinking of a Terminator robot sitting behind a desk, silly you, that’s this years’ photo.
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If you can break a job into roles and tasks you can automate it, and now CEO's are coming into the firing line...
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Matthew Griffin Founder, 311 Institute
Matthew Griffin is a multi-award winning Futurist and expert in Disruption and Innovation, Geopolitics, Leadership, and Technology, who NASA have described as a "walking encyclopaedia of the future" and a "futurist Polymath."
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Matthew Griffin is a multi-award winning Futurist and expert in Disruption and Innovation, Geopolitics, Leadership, and Technology, who NASA have described as a "walking encyclopaedia of the future" and a "futurist Polymath." 15-time best selling author of the "Codex of the Future" series, Matthew is the Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm working with royal households, world leaders, G7, G20, and G77 governments, NGOs, and multi-national mid and mega cap firms to help them explore, shape, and lead the next 50 years of business and society.
An award-winning YouTube creator with over a million followers, with an unrivalled global reach and impact, Matthew is a highly sought-after international keynote speaker, lecturer, and mentor who collaborates with global leaders through the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to shape pivotal initiatives such as the UN’s AI for Humanity program, the United Nations Conference of the Parties (UN COP), and the World Economic Forum in Davos.
As the former Global Head of Cloud, National Security, and Enterprise Sales for companies including Atos, Dell-EMC, and IBM, Matthew has a proven track record of building multi-billion dollar business units and turning failing divisions into market leaders. His ability to identify, analyse, and communicate the implications of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends is unparalleled, and his insights are trusted by many of the world’s most respected organisations, including ABB, Accenture, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi, Coca-Cola, Dentons, Deloitte, Dow Jones, EY, Google, KPMG, Lego, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, Siemens AG and Siemens Energy, T-Mobile, UBS, VISA, Walmart, Workday, Worldpay and many others.
Regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Khaleej Times, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, WIRED, and the WSJ, Matthews mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.
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Source: first published by the 311 Institute on 13 May 2017. Cite as: Griffin, M. (2017). Experts are starting to agree that AI will replace CEO’s. 311 Institute. https://www.311institute.com/experts-are-starting-to-agree-that-ai-will-replace-ceos/
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