Ford CEO Jim Farley knows AI won’t leave blue-collar workers untouched. But at a backstage media roundtable during Ford Pro Accelerate, he argued the technology will arrive in factories, repair bays, and skilled-trades workplaces principally as a “companion”—a tool to help people perform more complex tasks, build expertise faster, and help employers address an acute shortage of technical labor.
“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. But “if you work in finance doing spreadsheets, or you’re in a call center, or you’re an entry-level programmer—those jobs are definitely going to be changed and eliminated with at least this first inning of AI.”
