AI robots may outnumber workers in a few decades as firms ramp up investment

AI robots will exceed the working inhabitants inside a few decades as extra firms undertake AI brokers and proceed to squeeze prices, a former Citi govt warned on Monday.

Rob Garlick, Citi International Insights’ former head of innovation, expertise, and future of labor, advised CNBC’s “Squawk Field Europe” that as leaders proceed to prioritize profitability, their human workers will probably be left in the mud.

“We’ve got a management system in the financial phrases and enterprise phrases that celebrates profitability,” Garlick stated in a dialog with CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick and Ben Boulos.

“If you marry profitability up with the expertise progress, we have now the largest commerce in historical past coming, which is principally that synthetic intelligence will be capable of do increasingly, higher and higher, cheaper and cheaper, and that can be capable of substitute for folks.”

Garlick, who just lately authored “AI – Anarchy or Abundance? Why the Way forward for Work Wants Professional-Human Leaders,” defined that his earlier analysis at Citi confirmed that the variety of AI robots goes to skyrocket as a results of these enterprise choices.

“We will go over the following couple of decades to extra shifting robots than the working inhabitants, and then you definately add on brokers, little brokers, and it’ll explode,” he added.

AI robots starting from humanoids to home cleansing robots and autonomous automobiles are forecasted to extend to 1.3 billion by 2035, in line with a 2024 Citi report led by Garlick. The variety of AI robots would rapidly improve to over 4 billion by 2050, per the insights.

The Citi report even measured how lengthy it will take for a robotic to pay for itself by means of the cash saved by changing a human employee, for instance, a $15,000 robotic would break even in 3.8 weeks for a $41 an hour human job, or 21.6 weeks for a $7.25 human job. In the meantime, a robotic that prices $35,000 would have a payback time of 8.9 weeks for a $41 an hour human job.

“You may already purchase a humanoid at the moment, which supplies you a payback interval versus human workers of lower than 10 weeks,” Garlick advised CNBC, citing a determine from his e book. “People cannot compete on this foundation.”

Microsoft’s Work Pattern Index report confirmed that 80% of leaders count on AI brokers to be largely built-in into their AI technique inside the subsequent 12 to 18 months. AI brokers are a kind of software program program that may make choices and full duties with out a lot human path.

In the meantime, McKinsey & Firm’s international managing accomplice, Bob Sternfels, famous that the corporate at the moment employs 20,000 brokers alongside 40,000 people, in an interview with Harvard Enterprise Overview. A yr prior, the corporate solely had 3,000 brokers, and Sternfels predicts that in 18 months from now, there will probably be an equal variety of workers and brokers.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk additionally shared comparable views on the World Financial Discussion board’s flagship convention in Davos final month, saying that AI will doubtless surpass human intelligence by the tip of this yr.

“My prediction is, in the benign state of affairs of the long run, that we are going to truly make so many robots in AI that they’ll truly saturate all human… there will probably be such an abundance of products and companies as a result of my prediction is that there will be extra robots than folks,” Musk stated.

Fears round AI changing workers have mounted in the previous yr as main firms, together with Amazon, Salesforce, Accenture, Heineken, and Lufthansa, have cited the expertise as a part of the explanation for eliminating 1000’s of roles.

Kristalina Georgieva, managing director on the Worldwide Financial Fund, advised CNBC in January that AI is “hitting the labor market like a tsunami” and warned that “most international locations and most companies aren’t ready for it.”

Within the U.S., AI performed a position in virtually 55,000 layoffs in the U.S. in 2025, in line with December knowledge from consulting agency Challenger, Grey & Christmas.

Nonetheless, some leaders are putting a extra constructive tone. Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang predicts that the “AI increase” will create six-figure salaries for the workers constructing AI and chip factories. Huang stated the expertise will increase expert commerce work, such as for plumbers, electricians, development, and metal workers.