Verizon CEO Predicts AGI Within 18 Months and a Decade of Upheaval
Verizon CEO Dan Schulman told a Detroit audience that artificial general intelligence could arrive within six to 18 months, warning that a century of progress will be compressed into five to 10 years and that companies and governments must prepare for sweeping labor disruption.
Verizon CEO Dan Schulman predicted that some form of artificial general intelligence will arrive within the next six to 18 months, warning that the technology's economic and social effects will unfold far faster than institutions can absorb them. Speaking at the Ford Pro Accelerate event in Detroit, Schulman said the AI models in use today are the weakest that will ever exist, with each new generation arriving roughly every two months.
«The models that we see today are the worst models we'll ever use in our lives,» Schulman said. «Every two months, there's a step function change in the power of the models. I think we get to some form of AGI in the next six to 18 months. I think it's right on us.»
AGI generally refers to systems capable of reasoning and performing broadly across many domains rather than excelling at narrow, discrete tasks. Schulman said the shift will not wait for the usual mechanisms that help societies adjust to new technology, including training programs, labor markets, corporate restructuring and public policy.
He described a timeline in which AGI is followed about two years later by what he called «the era of quantum,» a phase he characterized as «everything today times 1,000.» By 2030 or 2035, he added, the world should expect «a pretty good form of humanoid robotics.»
Schulman framed the coming period as a compression of a century's worth of change into a single decade. «I think you'll see the collapse of the 21st century in the next five to 10 years,» he said, clarifying that he meant «progress we would have made over 100 years will happen over the next five to 10 years.» He added, «I don't think we can really imagine how powerful the technology and how fundamental it will be.»
The forecast carries direct implications for Verizon itself. Schulman said the company, which has more than 250,000 employees and contractors, must move from a workforce organized around «very defined roles and functions» to a «much more fluid organization.» He said the technology will keep advancing despite the need for safeguards, and he urged corporate leaders and government officials to plan for difficult scenarios rather than assume the labor market will adjust on its own.
Verizon recently announced a $70 million initiative to provide free AI training to American workers, including people outside the company, and to work with local organizations on career development. «Our responsibility is to think about what might go wrong, what might we need to address, what might the disruption look like, and how do we put guardrails, training, programs in place to minimize that risk,» Schulman said. «Everybody's job is going to shift. I don't think everybody will land just magically in a better place per se.»
Other executives on the panel described different constraints on the AI future. PG&E CEO Patti Poppe said an increasingly digitized grid will require workers who combine physical skills with technological fluency. She described seeing a PG&E worker lowered by rope from a helicopter onto a transmission tower in mountainous California, and said the utility's future grid will use sensors, remote-edge computing and predictive capabilities to spot risks before they cause outages or wildfires. «The same guys who hang on the end of the rope are going to have to get smarter about those kinds of technologies,» Poppe said. «I'm still going to need those people. Somebody's still going to have to connect that wire to the pole.»
Dave Regnery, CEO of Trane Technologies, compared current anxieties about AI to fears that surrounded the arrival of personal computers four decades ago, saying the arguments are «identical.» He said his company uses data and AI to run heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems according to how buildings are actually used, noting that buildings account for about 30% of all energy and that roughly 30% of that is wasted. Trane can make buildings operate about 15% more efficiently than their design baseline, he said, improving customer economics while creating demand for technicians who can install and service sophisticated systems.
Chris Nelson, CEO of Stanley Black & Decker, described a similar transition on job sites. His company has developed AI-enabled autonomous drilling robots that use digital construction plans to drill holes for racks in data centers and other projects. The technology is designed to take over repetitive physical tasks rather than replace the electricians and skilled tradespeople needed to finish the work.
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