Business · Fortune Technology
Ford CEO sees blue-collar workers using AI as a ‘companion’—but other jobs ‘are definitely going to be changed and eliminated’
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Ford CEO Jim Farley knows AI won’t leave blue-collar workers untouched.
Key facts
- The company has more than 10,000 skilled-trades workers, or roughly 20% of its 56,000 UAW workers
- I think most of these jobs will be both using AI and also protected from it,” Farley said at the roundtable, which also included Linda Hubbard, president and CEO of Carhartt, and Chris Nelson, CEO
- Ford CEO Jim Farley knows AI won’t leave blue-collar workers untouched
- Ford Pro is using AI to help dealers who haven’t done that before get it done much quicker
Summary
“I think most of these jobs will be both using AI and also protected from it,” Farley said at the roundtable, which also included Linda Hubbard, president and CEO of Carhartt, and Chris Nelson, CEO of Stanley Black & Decker. Farley’s distinction was straightforward: AI is likely to disrupt routine, screen-based, and standardized knowledge work more quickly than it can replace electricians, technicians, mechanics, and factory skilled-trades workers. At Ford, Farley said, that change is already underway. Farley said the line separating skilled trades from engineering is increasingly hard to see inside newer auto plants. “The visible line now, it’s kind of hard to tell when an engineer or a manufacturing engineer stops, and the skilled trade starts in these newer type operations,” he said.