Your Future Coworker Might Not Be Human
The workplace is on the brink of transformation. Instead of humans huddled in cubicles, employees will soon find themselves working alongside AI-powered digital colleagues. According to Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, artificial intelligence could reach human-level capabilities within just a few years—not decades.
“Today’s AI systems are very passive, and there are still a lot of things they can’t do,” Hassabis said during a briefing at DeepMind’s London headquarters on Monday. “But over the next five to ten years, many of those capabilities will start emerging, and we’ll begin moving towards artificial general intelligence (AGI).”
AI’s Race Toward Human-Level Intelligence
Hassabis envisions AGI as technology capable of performing all the complex tasks humans can—and possibly outperforming them.
But for now, workers still have time before they’re trading office gossip with an AI coworker.
“We’re not quite there yet,” Hassabis said. “These systems are very impressive at certain things, but there are still areas where they fall short. We’ve still got quite a lot of research work to do before reaching AGI.”
AI is Reshaping the Workforce
Hassabis is far from alone in predicting the end of all-human workforces. Across industries, CEOs are increasingly acknowledging that "digital employees" and robotic workers will become standard fixtures in offices and on factory floors.
Despite corporate reassurances that AI will simply "enhance" jobs rather than replace them, many workers remain skeptical about their future job security.
Google DeepMind did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
The Future of AGI and Work
The race toward AGI continues, with industry leaders offering varying timelines for its arrival.
Robin Li, CEO of Chinese tech giant Baidu, agrees that AGI will eventually match human intelligence—but believes it’s further away than 2030.
“AGI is still several years away,” Li said at the VivaTech conference in Paris last year. “Some people predict AGI will arrive in two to five years, but I think it’s more than ten years away.”
While the debate over AGI’s exact timeline continues, one thing is clear: The all-human workplace is disappearing.
