- Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey is stepping down due to AI-driven leadership needs
- Henrique Braun will succeed Quincey as Coca-Cola CEO at the end of this month
- Former Walmart CEO Doug McMillon retired citing inability to lead through AI changes
Amid the rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the last few years, industry experts have repeatedly warned about entry-level workers losing out on employment opportunities. Turns out, the top executives at multinational companies are not safe either. In a conversation with CNBC, Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey and former Walmart CEO Doug McMillon revealed that the rapid evolution of AI was a primary factor in their decisions to step down, citing the need for a new era of leadership to manage the transition.
Quincey, who has been CEO of the beverage giant since 2017, will be succeeded by current COO Henrique Braun at the end of this month.
“My job is also to think who's the best team to put on the field to get the next wave done,” Quincey told the publication. “And I concluded that, actually, it was time to put someone else on the field for the next wave of growth.”
Quincey added that in a pre-AI and a pre-gen-AI mode, the company made a lot of progress under him, but now there was a 'huge new shift' coming that needed a different leadership. He said Coca-Cola needs someone with the "energy to pursue a completely new transformation of the enterprise".
Meanwhile, McMillon, who retired in January, stated in a previous interview that his decision to hand over the reins was due to him being unable to see through the AI revolution.
“With what's happening with AI, I could start this next big set of transformations with AI, but I couldn't finish,” said McMillon, adding: "About a year ago, I really started feeling like this next run, you could see what agentic commerce was going to look like, the vision for AI shopping."
"I started thinking about everything that needs to happen over the next few years, and it really caused me to think that now was the right time to step down."
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Loss Of Jobs
While the top CEOs anticipate the upcoming AI run, the fate of entry-level workers seems bleak. Last year, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned that AI could wipe out half of the entry-level white-collar jobs within the next five years. Amodei said repetitive-but-variable tasks in law firms, consulting, administration, and finance could be eliminated soon, with CEOs looking to use AI to cut costs.
"Specifically, if we look at jobs like entry-level white, you know, I think of people who work at law firms, like first-year associates, there's a lot of document review. It's very repetitive, but every example is different. That's something that AI is quite good at," Amodei said.
"I think, to be honest, a large fraction of them would like to be able to use it to cut costs to employ less people," he added.
Geoffrey Hinton, regarded by many as the 'godfather of AI', has also stated that the rise of technology will make companies more profitable than ever, but it may come at the cost of workers losing their jobs, with unemployment expected to rise to catastrophic levels.
