According to Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI and cofounder of Google DeepMind, the future of work will involve a deep, interactive partnership between humans and artificial intelligence, AI
In a recent episode of the Big Technology Podcast, Suleyman described a future where managing AI agents becomes a central part of daily professional life.
“I do think your day-to-day workflow just isn’t going to look like this in 10 or 15 years’ time,” he said. “It’s going to be much more about you managing your AI agent, asking it to go do things, checking in on its quality, getting feedback, and getting into this symbiotic relationship where you iterate with it.”
Suleyman, a long-time voice in the AI space, emphasized that while artificial intelligence hasn’t yet fully realized some of its most ambitious promises — like medical breakthroughs or climate change solutions — its impact on society is already profound.
“After all, it is intelligence that has produced everything that is of value in our human civilization,” Suleyman said. “Everything around us is a product of smart human beings getting together, organizing, creating, inventing, and producing everything that you see in your line of sight at this very moment.”
Despite growing concerns about AI’s role in areas like warfare and labor displacement, Suleyman remains optimistic, noting that the technology is becoming cheaper and more accessible — a development he believes will accelerate its integration into everyday life.
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“We’re now about to make that very same technique, those set of capabilities, really cheap — if not, like, zero marginal cost,” he noted.
Advice to the Next Generation: Play, Experiment, Learn
Suleyman urged younger generations to embrace AI with curiosity and a willingness to experiment. Comparing it to the early days of the internet, he said the best way to understand AI’s potential — and its limitations — is to “play with these things.”
“It’s a little bit like saying, ‘What should young people do when they get access to the internet for the first time?’ Part of it is sort of obvious. Use it, experiment, try stuff out, do crazy things, make mistakes, get it wrong,” he explained.
He believes that users, not developers, ultimately shape how technologies evolve, pointing to history as proof.
“As we’ve seen over and over in the history of technology, the things that people choose to do with their phones, with the internet, with their laptops… are always way more inventive and surprising than anything you could possibly think of ahead of time.”
