‘This revolution is happening in years, not decades’: Verizon CEO Dan Schulman sees AGI within 18 months—and a century of progress in a decade

Verizon CEO Dan Schulman used a Detroit conference stage to make one of the boldest AI forecasts in recent memory. Speaking at Ford Pro Accelerate with Fortune’s Diane Brady, he said the models we use now are “the worst models we’ll ever use” and predicted some form of AGI in the next six to 18 months.

He didn’t stop there. Schulman said the next two years after that could bring what he called “the era of quantum,” which he described as “everything today times 1,000.” By 2030 or 2035, he expects a “pretty good form of humanoid robotics.” His broader point was blunt: the next decade will be defined by intense change.

Schulman argued that the economic and social impact of AI will move faster than the institutions built to handle disruption. Training systems, labor markets, corporate restructuring, and public policy, he said, won’t absorb the change cleanly. He went as far as to say we could see “the collapse of the 21st century” within five to 10 years, meaning the kind of progress that would normally take a century could happen in a fraction of the time.

And he says Verizon itself will feel it. The company has more than 250,000 employees and contractors, and Schulman said it will need to shift away from rigid roles toward a more fluid organization. Verizon also announced a $70 million training initiative for American workers, including free AI training and career development support with local organizations.

Other executives on the panel sounded less apocalyptic, but not exactly relaxed. PG&E’s Patti Poppe said the grid still needs people who can climb towers, connect wires, and work in the field, even as sensors and predictive systems get smarter. Trane Technologies’ Dave Regnery framed AI as a way to run buildings more efficiently, while Stanley Black & Decker’s Chris Nelson described AI-enabled drilling robots that handle repetitive work. Dycom’s Dan Peyovich, meanwhile, said the real bottleneck is finding enough workers for the infrastructure buildout all this technology requires.