By Hugh Cameron
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A number of America’s top business leaders are betting that the productivity gains offered by artificial intelligence could ease the pressures placed on employees and inaugurate a radical shift in the U.S. workplace.
In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Ari Emanuel, former CEO of entertainment conglomerate Endeavour, said that the average workweek could drop down to three days thanks to AI, as the technology speeds up everyday tasks and creates “more free time.”
Why It Matters
Several other executives—from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to Microsoft founder Bill Gates—have similarly voiced their belief that AI could drastically lighten the workload for American employees and reduce the number of hours they need to spend at their jobs.
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Their testimony reflects the rampant enthusiasm among businesses about the advent of AI—signaled also by the immense investments being poured into its adoption. But many worry that these benefits may coincide with significant new risks for the average worker, potentially triggering widespread job losses as more and more roles become subject to automation.
What To Know
In his interview with the Financial Times, Emanuel addressed the fears that AI expediting tasks and freeing up time will result in employees leading less fulfilled lives.
“If you believe the premise that humans are social animals, they’re going to have to do something. They can’t just sit at home, so they’ll go to music, they’ll go to sports and they’ll go to my live events,” he said.
His optimism regarding AI has recently been shared by Zoom CEO Eric Yuan, who told the New York Times in September that, as A.I. takes over duties from note-taking to customer service, employees will only be needed for a handful of days each week.
“I feel like if A.I. can make all of our lives better, why do we need to work for five days a week?” he said. “Every company will support three days, four days a week. I think this ultimately frees up everyone’s time.”
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Nvidia’s CEO has similarly said that AI will “probably” lead to four-day workweeks in a post on LinkedIn, while Gates suggested that even greater change could be on the horizon during an appearance on The Tonight Show early this year.
“It brings with it kind of so much change,” Gates told Jimmy Fallon. “You know, what will jobs be like? Should we, you know, just work like two or three days a week?”
However, others believe that, rather than ushering in a new age of freedom and flexibility, AI could cause unprecedented damage to the jobs market in the U.S. Dario Amodei, CEO of the AI startup Anthropic, told Axios in May that the technology could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar roles within five years, causing the unemployment rate to jump to between 10 and 20 percent.
What People Are Saying
Entrepreneur and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, in a recent interview with Newsweek, said: “I don't think enough attention is being paid to various downsides of the advent of AI, from job replacement to the splintering of reality to rampant identity theft to the changing of hiring practices in a way that will systematically block certain folks that are not on the good side of various data points.”
Yasemin Besen-Cassino, a professor of sociology at Montclair State University, told Newsweek: "Shorter workweeks have been very successful in Europe. In many European countries where shorter work week was adopted, it increased productivity and decreased burnout. With technological advancements, it would be beneficial for workers to have shorter weeks provided their pay and benefits stay the same."
She added that it's "not clear that corporations will use the benefits of AI to allow all their workers to work shorter weeks. It could also result in downsizing the workforce substantially without reducing the workload."
Rita Fontinha, who has led several studies trialing the four-day workweek, told Newsweek previously: "For workers, we found improved work-life balance, better mental health (including reductions in stress, burnout, anxiety, and insomnia), higher job satisfaction, and improved performance—as reported by both employees and their supervisors. For organizations, our findings show increased productivity at the collective level, as well as improvements in revenue and profit."
Dario Amodei, in his interview with Axios, said: “We, as the producers of this technology, have a duty and an obligation to be honest about what is coming. I don't think this is on people's radar."
What Happens Next
Though a number of countries have trialed four-day workweeks, and studies show that this change results in major improvements for employees’ mental and physical health, the idea of a four-day—let alone a three-day—week has not yet been adopted on a large scale.
Update 10/10/25 8:32 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Yasemin Besen-Cassino.
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