Eric Schmidt says AI can cut big-company coordination work

Eric Schmidt, who used to run Google, said AI can cut the coordination work that slows large companies. He said so on the podcast In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen, in an episode posted Wednesday.

This matters for anyone who works in an office. Schmidt was talking about planning and administrative jobs, and he thinks some of them will not be needed. It also bears on your pension or savings if they sit in companies that start running leaner.

Schmidt described running a company with 10,000 people. He said staff spend days in meetings, and he once sat in them 12 hours a day. He said AI tools for business can take on much of that work. Then he made his point in his own words, starting at 36:44.

"Much of that coordination tax can be eliminated by these ai platforms for business"

He told of a friend whose fast-growing company laid off 20% of its people. Schmidt said they were the "glue people" who planned and moved numbers around. He thinks a 10,000 person company may have a couple of thousand people it does not need. He said companies would still need inventors, salespeople, strong leaders and people to talk to the government.

Crypto Briefing ran the story on Thursday under the headline "Eric Schmidt says AI could cut 20% of jobs at large companies." It reports that he expects AI to remove jobs that handle meetings and coordination. The 20% in his story came from his friend's company, and the forecast about large firms is his own opinion. He did not say when it might happen.

Watch the 2 minutes where he explains it.35:56