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In Brief
After two years of careful hedging, the C-suite is starting to say out loud what it has been saying privately:
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says tech executives privately acknowledge the scale of AI disruption, then publicly pretend everything is fine.
PwC's U.S. CEO says anyone who opts out of AI won't last.
What Happened
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told The Diary of a CEO he has personally heard executives admit the true scale of AI disruption, then watched those same people on television tell audiences everything will work out fine. Why? Honesty about job displacement spooks investors and dries up fundraising, he says.
Khosrowshahi estimates AI will eventually replace the work that 70-80% of humans do: Knowledge jobs within a decade. Physical roles, including driving, within 15 to 20 years. When asked what Uber's 9.5 million drivers and couriers will do next, he says: "I don't know."
The same week, PwC's U.S. CEO Paul Griggs told the Financial Times that partners who are not "paranoid about being AI-first" will be replaced. "I don't think anyone gets a free pass here," he said. "Anyone." An employee who thinks they have the "opportunity to opt out" of AI, Griggs added, is "not going to be here that long." PwC cut 5,600 staff last year and is launching "PwC One," an AI platform that turns consulting and tax services into automated subscription tools that work "in the first steps, without a PwC person in the loop."
SmarterX founder and CEO Paul Roetzer broke down what these statements signal on Episode 207 of The Artificial Intelligence Show.
The Key Numbers
70-80% - Human work Khosrowshahi estimates AI will eventually replace
9.5 million - Uber drivers and couriers whose future Khosrowshahi says he cannot predict
5,600 - Staff cut at PwC last year as the firm shifts toward AI-powered services
~502,000 - AI-related job cuts projected for 2026, a 9x increase from 2025, per an NBER survey of 750 CFOs
Why CEOs are Speaking Out Publicly
Earnings calls are forcing it. Every three months, CEOs have to face analysts and describe what they are actually doing with AI. Keeping private the inner workings of AI impact and strategy is getting harder. "Every three months these CEOs have to get on earnings calls, and it's getting really hard to not say out loud what they've been saying privately," says Roetzer.
This has been two years in the making. This is not a sudden shift. It echoes what Roetzer has been hearing directly from enterprise leaders for some time. "What executives are saying privately, telling me privately what they're going to do, and what they're saying publicly have been two completely different things for about a year and a half, two years now," he says.
"I would much rather they just said it than pretend like it's not going to happen. I know plenty of enterprises and leaders who know what's going to happen and just refuse to publicly say it or to say it to their own people."
Paul Roetzer, founder and CEO of SmarterX, Episode 207 of The Artificial Intelligence Show
The talent divide is already here. Roetzer sees a clear split forming. AI-forward managers and executives with industry expertise and institutional knowledge will be worth significantly more. Professionals who don't learn AI will struggle to remain employed. "People who just resist this for whatever their reasons are, and some of them are very good reasons, and I empathize with those reasons, I don't know what else to tell you. You just won't be employable," Roetzer says.
Entry-level work is the biggest concern. The question Roetzer keeps returning to is what happens one layer below the managers who can use AI to do tactical work themselves. "I don't know what you're going to hire entry-level people for," he says.
SmarterX Take
PwC's move from hourly billing to AI-powered subscription services is worth monitoring. Griggs told the Financial Times that PwC is no longer hiring "the same number of accountants and traditional consultants vis-a-vis engineers, on a proportionate basis" that it was three years ago. The firm would rather disrupt its own business model than let someone else do it. That calculus will spread to every professional services firm within the next 18 months.
The NBER data offers some useful grounding. A survey of 750 CFOs projects roughly 502,000 AI-related job cuts in 2026. That is a 9x increase over 2025, but still represents only 0.4% of total US employment. Roetzer cautions that the CFOs surveyed may not have the highest AI literacy and the data was collected before the latest wave of model advances. Still, the number suggests we are in the early stages of job losses from AI.
What to Watch
Whether more CEOs follow this pattern on upcoming earnings calls. The next 90 days of Q1 2026 earnings will reveal whether Khosrowshahi and Griggs are outliers or the start of a broader shift in public tone. Roetzer expects the latter.
The midterms accelerating the conversation. If AI-related layoff numbers keep climbing, job displacement becomes a campaign issue. Roetzer notes the political dynamics are already shifting. Whoever controls the narrative around AI and employment over the next year will shape policy for a decade.
Further Reading
Uber's CEO Says Other Executives Are Lying About AI → thestreet.com
PwC Partners Who Fail to Embrace AI Have No Future at Firm, US CEO Warns → theguardian.com
CFOs Admit AI Layoffs Will Be 9x Higher This Year → fortune.com
Heard on The Artificial Intelligence Show, Episode 207
Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput discuss what happens when CEOs start saying publicly what they have been saying privately about AI and jobs. Listen →
Mike Kaput
Mike Kaput is the Chief Content Officer at SmarterX and a leading voice on the application of AI in business. He is the co-author of Marketing Artificial Intelligence and co-host of The Artificial Intelligence Show podcast.