By Ben Shimkus
Publication Date: 2026-06-11 09:14:00
Microsoft President Brad Smith has a message for tech leaders after college graduates booed AI during this year’s commencement speeches: listen.
In a blog post published Wednesday, Smith said recent pushback — including from students about to enter the job market — against AI’s role in society should serve as “a powerful wake-up call for the tech sector.”
“To those in the tech sector who seemingly want to pursue a future where computers replace jobs, and AI becomes more capable than people, the next generation has offered a compelling response: ‘Not so fast,'” Smith wrote.
For years, executives have cast AI as transformative and, at times, warned that its impact on jobs could be brutal.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said last year that AI is becoming so powerful that it could wipe out half of all entry-level jobs. Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman said in February that computer work “will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18…
