Bill Gates says artificial intelligence will change the world in the next 10 years—and humans may no longer be needed for many jobs.
He shared this view during a February interview with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show. Right now, Gates said, we still rely on human experts like doctors and teachers. But he believes that will change.
“With AI, over the next decade, that will become free, commonplace—great medical advice, great tutoring,” Gates said.
He’s calling this shift the start of “free intelligence.” In a separate talk with Harvard professor Arthur Brooks, Gates said AI will soon be able to offer advanced help in many areas—health care, education, even everyday tasks.
“It’s very profound and even a little bit scary,” Gates told Brooks. “Because it’s happening very quickly, and there is no upper bound.”
People are still debating what this future means for human jobs. Some say AI will help people work faster and smarter. Others think it will replace a lot of jobs altogether.
Microsoft’s AI CEO, Mustafa Suleyman, believes the change will be disruptive. In his 2023 book The Coming Wave, he wrote that these tools will improve our work for a while—but their long-term role will likely be to replace labor.
AI Brings Both Risks and Opportunity
Gates still sees AI as a positive force. He’s hopeful it will help us fight diseases, solve climate problems, and give more people access to education.
On The Tonight Show, he joked that people probably don’t want machines playing baseball. Some things, he said, we’ll always want to do ourselves.
“But in terms of making things, moving things, growing food—over time, those will be basically solved problems,” Gates said.
He’s also aware of the risks. In a 2023 blog post, Gates said it’s fair to worry about AI. Many current models still make errors and can spread false information.
Still, if he had to start a new company, he said it would be focused on AI. In a 2024 interview with CNBC Make It, he said AI startups are raising huge amounts of money—even if they only have a rough idea.
“I’m encouraging young people at Microsoft, OpenAI, wherever I find them: ‘Hey, here’s the frontier,’” he said.
He Saw It Coming
Gates has been interested in AI for years. Back in 2017, he said that if he were starting over, AI is the field he’d choose.
At an event with Warren Buffett, he pointed to Google DeepMind’s success with Go, the board game, as a major moment.
Back then, AI hadn’t yet reached today’s level. Tools like ChatGPT didn’t exist. Even Gates was surprised by how fast things moved. In a blog post, he said he once challenged OpenAI to build a model that could ace an AP Biology exam. He thought it would take years.
“They finished it in just a few months,” Gates wrote.
He called it “the most important advance in technology since the graphical user interface.”
