Monday, August 3, 2026

Ikea’s AI bot didn’t replace workers. It made them more valuable

In today’s CEO Daily: So far, AI is reshaping jobs—not ending them.
The big leadership story: Inside Mamdani’s grocery store
The markets: Mixed globally, as Trump says talks with Iran will resume
Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.

Good morning. Remember the AI jobs apocalypse? OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Dario Amodei of Anthropic both forecast it—and have since scaled back predictions. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg now expects net job growth and an “AI future for everyone.” Then there are folks like Vinod Khosla and Elon Musk, who predict people won’t need money or jobs, without telling us how this utopia/dystopia will come to pass.

The reality thus far is that AI is reshaping roles rather than eliminating them. My colleague Claire Zillman just wrote about how Ikea is reskilling its workforce. It’s been five years since Ikea launched the AI-powered customer service bot Billie that now assists three-quarters of customers who come to it with queries. Instead of laying off the call center workers whose jobs the bot had partly taken over, though, Ikea has retrained them. And now those centers have become the retailer’s fastest-growing sales channel over the past three years, with year-on-year growth of between 15% and 20% annually.

It’s a story that I’m hearing more in my conversations with leaders. Last week, my colleague Sheryl Estrada and I co-hosted a dinner for CFOs in partnership with IBM. Throughout the wide-ranging conversation, it became clear that these finance leaders—who arguably should be motivated to keep headcount down in volatile times—are thinking about AI as a driver of productivity, growth, and engagement. Their challenge is getting colleagues to use the tools more often, to get over the fear that AI is there to one day replace them.

The World Economic Forum estimates that 92 million jobs globally could be displaced by AI, related technologies, and demographic shifts by 2030. But about 170 million new roles could also be generated, WEF estimates, if employers invest in upskilling workers to deploy AI. As Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon points out, AI is just another technology tool. What’s different is the pace at which it’s driving change. Examples like Ikea are important in showcasing how AI really can benefit humans, with hard numbers that demonstrate growth. I’d be curious to know how engagement and net promoter scores shift, too. I look forward to hearing your stories.

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com

Top leadership news

Inside Mamdani’s grocery store

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani plans five city-owned supermarkets, one per borough, offering a core basket of staples at prices 30% below market. The $70 million initiative, operated by private managers on city property without rent or taxes, aims to cut household grocery bills but faces sharp criticism from economists and small grocers who warn it could distort competition, force private stores out of business, and ultimately shift costs to taxpayers.

CXMT’s blockbuster IPO

Chinese chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies, or CXMT, became the country’s most valuable company almost overnight. Yet experts are split on whether the rise in CXMT’s stock price is a temporary boost fueled by AI-driven memory shortages, or a long-term shift in global AI supply chains where Chinese chipmakers are now coming to the fore.

Wall Street’s hidden recruiting pipeline

At Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America, the fastest route from the Ivy league to a corner office might not run through the career center at all, but through the football roster. Researchers found a team bond is a far more potent career driver than a diploma itself. Having one additional former teammate—same sport, same school, same roster—already working at a firm raised a fellow player’s odds of joining that firm by 193.7%.