AI and jobs: Microsoft's Brad Smith says AI is not yet displacing many jobs, and expects the shift to play out over 25 years

Microsoft president Brad Smith says AI has not yet caused large-scale job losses, but that its effect on jobs will be a 25-year journey. "So far we are not seeing AI displace a lot of jobs," he told Inside Business, The Irish Times business podcast, in an interview published on 15 October 2026, "but I think it would be a mistake to just assume that the future won't create new challenges." Smith, in Dublin for the Government's AI Summit at the RDS, said the response should be to "double down on giving people the skills so they can put AI to work", to "really understand how jobs are evolving", and that "we're probably going to need some creative Government policies as well". He added: "This is a journey that I think will be ahead of us for the next 25 years." Smith has a direct stake: Microsoft is one of the largest sellers of AI tools to employers and has cut its own staff while spending heavily on AI infrastructure. His view is close to that of Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman, who has called fears of AI job losses overblown, and sits apart from the Irish Government's own line at the same summit, where Enterprise Minister Peter Burke linked a "very significant" number of redundancies to AI. This is a statement, not a job cut, so nothing here enters the AI layoffs tracker.