India, Feb. 12 -- Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman on Thursday said that most of the tasks performed in white-collar jobs will be fully automated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) within the next 12 to 18 months.

In an interview with Financial Times, Suleyman said that white-collar jobs like lawyers, accountants and project manager which involve sitting down at a computer, will be fully automated by an AI.

He also gave the reference of software engineering, where professionals are reportedly using AI to assist with the vast majority of their code production. He said that in this scenario, the role of engineers is now shifted to doing "strategic" stuff, like architecting and putting things into production. This shift in job role has taken...