Eric Schmidt thinks the CEO of the future will have an AI assistant that can see across the entire company. For employees whose job is to keep a sprawling business coordinated, that could be bad news.
In an episode of the “In Good Company” podcast, the former Google chief executive described assistants that check whether company activity aligns with a leader’s values, follow up on projects, and help identify ways to increase profits.
He argued that the technology could make businesses faster and flatter, with fewer people needed to plan, relay information, and move numbers around.
Schmidt sees little time for companies to adjust. He said competition in AI is fiercer than the PC-versus-Mac or Android-versus-iPhone battles: a model can take roughly six months to build, another two to test, and then be overtaken within five months of release.
“Time compresses every cycle,” he said.
He also rejected the idea that AI is a bubble, pointing to Anthropic’s rapid revenue growth. Schmidt said the company had grown faster than a record set during his time at Google, calling it “real money with real customers.”
The changes he envisions are already visible in smaller experiments, he said. Schmidt gave the example of two founders he knows who ask an AI assistant every Friday to flag anything happening at their company that conflicts with their values.
Another executive created an AI version of himself that checks on an employee’s progress, gives him instructions, and responds when he needs help, Schmidt said. That exchange sounded potentially abusive and worried him, he added, though he also saw how it sped up the executive’s decisions.
Schmidt said his days as CEO were consumed by meetings, 12 hours a day, five days a week, as he listened to people explain projects and decisions. He thinks AI platforms can eliminate much of that “coordination tax”: the effort of gathering updates, passing them upward, and keeping teams aligned.
For a company with 10,000 employees, Schmidt guessed AI could leave “a couple of thousand people who you don’t need.”
He cited a friend whose fast-growing company cut 20% of its staff, including the “glue people” who handled planning and coordination. The friend later told Schmidt he had received death threats over the cuts.
Schmidt said companies would still need people who build products, make sales, speak with regulators, and lead teams. His advice to workers whose roles were disappearing was that executives should transition them “legally and humanely.”
