Wall Street Journal: 4/19/2026 #WSJ 📰
Verizon’s Dan Schulman is all in on AI, but he warns that it is time for business leaders to acknowledge its disruptive potential.
For a big-company CEO with big AI ambitions, Verizon's [vz0.24% v
Dan Schulman doesn't pull punches about the pain the technology could unleash on America's workforce.
Just months into the job, he has predicted 20% to 30% unemployment within the next two to five years. He warns that advancements in humanoid robots could upend the manual-labor jobs still seen as safe today. And he has pushed for more education and reskilling to help workers adapt to the intensifying tech disruption.
Couched in the blunt AT talk is a warning for other CEOs: Be candid about the coming disruption, or risk a public backlash. “It’s a very difficult time, and everyone knows it is,” Schulman said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “So I think being authentic, being realistic, telling the truth, as best you can” is key. That belief, he said, is why Verizon created a $20 million career-transition and retraining fund for the “age of AI” when the company began laying off 13,000 workers last year.
Schulman's big picture has also included sweeping job cuts. The 13,000 #layoffs he announced shortly after his appointment
as CEO in October were Verizon's largest ever —but necessary to make Verizon more efficient, he said. Altogether, he is seeking to cut $9 billion in costs. Verizon has said its #layoffs weren't related to AI.
The carrier was "too hierarchical, way too bureaucratic, way too process-oriented as opposed to outcomes-oriented," Schulman told investors at a Morgan Stanley (M5100% ) event last month.
In meetings, he has repeatedly told Verizon staff they must embrace AI, describing it as core to the company's future. He used it himself to comb through some He used it himself to comb through some 8,000 responses after asking employees how he could reduce bureaucracy, he said.
Schulman's embrace of Al goes deeper than cost-cutting. He envisions a company wholly reshaped by the technology, from improved customer service to more personalized options for
consumers.
And he has encouraged staffers to talk to their children about Al at the dinner
table. In one all-hands, Schulman recommended that staff ask Al to write their obituary to see how the technology works and how it frames their lives. He
has also invited staffers to experiment with AI by writing poems to their loved ones. (He said he has done the same for his wife.)
Some employees responded by using Al to write poems for Schulman-and they weren't bad, he said. ~
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/the-ceo-preaching-straight-talk-about-ai-and-job-losses-a3aaaaf1?