When Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman warned that many white-collar tasks could be automated within the next 12 to 18 months, it sounded dramatic. But it did not sound impossible. He was not talking about robots replacing factory workers. He was talking about the work done by people sitting in front of computers: legal drafting, accounting, marketing, project management, coding, reporting, documentation, research and routine office decision-making. In other words, the jobs that keep most modern offices alive. https://fortune.com/article/why-microsoft-ai-chief-mustafa-suleyman-predicts-ai-automation-18-months/

Now ask the uncomfortable question: what happens to Pakistan? Pakistan has seen technology waves before. When the internet arrived, the world started changing fast. Businesses moved online. Global communication became instant. New companies were born. New careers were created. But Pakistan was slow. We adopted late, trained late, digitized late and paid the price in lost competitiveness.

Artificial intelligence is not like the internet. The internet gave people access to information. AI can do the work inside that information. It can write, summarize, design, code, analyze, automate, respond, research and increasingly act through agents. That makes AI a blessing, but also a shock. It can help a professional become ten times faster. It can also expose the professional who never upgraded

This is why Pakistan’s white-collar class should not feel too comfortable. The risk is not that every office worker will disappear overnight. The risk is that one AI-trained worker will start doing the work of five untrained workers. A young graduate using AI agents may outperform a senior employee who still depends on old methods. A small business using automation may move faster than a large department waiting for approvals. This is how disruption actually happens. Slowly at first, then suddenly

To be fair, Pakistan has started moving. The National AI........

© Daily Times