Ford's chief executive says spreadsheet, call-centre and entry-level programming jobs will be 'changed and eliminated' in AI's first inning, while the skilled trades get a companion

Jim Farley, chief executive of Ford, drew a line through the labour market at a media roundtable at the Ford Pro Accelerate event in Detroit on 30 September 2026, reported first-hand by Fortune. On one side, white-collar routine: "If you work in finance doing spreadsheets, or you're in a call center, or you're an entry-level programmer, those jobs are definitely going to be changed and eliminated with at least this first inning of AI." On the other, the trades: "I think most of these jobs will be both using AI and also protected from it." Farley's stake is a large one. Ford employs more than 10,000 skilled-trades workers, about a fifth of its 56,000 UAW-represented workforce, and is itself putting AI into its plants and dealerships; he described Ford Pro using AI to walk technicians through jobs they have never done, such as an engine removal: "They're good mechanics, they just don't know. They've never done it before." He said the boundary between engineers and hourly tradespeople has blurred as the work moves from maintaining conveyors to repairing robots and handling fibre, and he warned that workers will resist the tools if they suspect the data will be used against them, comparing today's unease to the old hostility toward time-and-motion studies. Farley announced no cuts at Ford and attributed none to AI; this is the view of the chief executive of one of the largest unionised employers in the United States about which jobs the technology takes first. It sharpens a position he has held since the Aspen Ideas Festival in June 2025, when he said AI would replace "literally half" of white-collar workers in the United States.