When Jamie Dimon makes predictions, the C-suite pays attention.
“It’s going to affect every application, every job, every customer interface,” Dimon said. “My guess is the developed world will be working three and a half days a week in 20, 30, 40 years, and have wonderful lives.”
Dimon’s three-and-a-half-day forecast hinges on that cumulative productivity. As AI absorbs routine work, the same output may require fewer hours. But he’s adamant the transition won’t be painless.
He also stresses AI’s economics aren’t the same as the internet’s. The build-out is both capital- and power-hungry; some hyped projects “won’t get the power they need,” he said. Investors should underwrite data-center and AI infrastructure deal by deal, he added, noting who has revenue, who takes construction and technology risk, what happens if the chips or plants don’t perform—rather than buying the theme wholesale. In his words: Some AI efforts will be “in a bubble,” but in total, the technology “will probably pay off.”
Dimon has a consistent message to operators: Stop overintellectualizing model theology and deploy.
“Use it … in any business,” he said.
JPMorgan is even running AI master classes for senior managers after finding many leaders at the company simply didn’t know what current tools could already do. (One reaction Dimon quoted was: “I didn’t know it could read 100,000 documents.”)
All in all, the future of work may be shorter in hours but richer in value, if leaders do the hard part now. That means modernizing data so AI can actually use it (“We spend a lot of money getting data into the proper format … We’re not measuring how much it costs,” Dimon said); investing through the power constraints; and building humane off-ramps for roles that will disappear.
Dimon’s bet is that what machines remove, well-led institutions can remake: And that’s how you get to a three-and-a-half-day week without blowing up the social contract.
“You know, technology has downsides. It’s used by bad people,” Dimon said at the forum. “But embrace it.”
