“I hate working five days,” Yuan told the Wall Street Journal.
“I’m pretty sure actually we really do not need to work for five days,” he said, adding that in the next half-decade, the workweek will be cut down to three days a week.
Calls for a shorter workweek aren’t new. Yuan pointed to past productivity breakthroughs—like Henry Ford’s assembly line, which helped reduce the workweek from six to five days. But this time, he argued, AI could accelerate that shift even further.
“I do not think we need to work for five days because literally, we all will employ so many digital agents,” Yuan said. In the future, he suggested, individuals could deploy thousands of AI agents to handle routine tasks like responding to emails or attending meetings. Yuan has already experimented with the concept himself—using an AI version of his likeness to join an earnings call last year.
While that could free up more time for human-to-human interaction, Yuan stressed that it won’t eliminate work altogether.
“We can enjoy the beach time, but we want the kids [to] still find something new, exciting to work [on].”
Fortune reached out to Zoom for further comment.
Workers are eager for a reduced workweek—but not every policy makes work-life balance easier
Momentum for a shorter workweek has been gaining steam. A 2024 survey from the American Psychological Association (APA) found that 80% of workers believe they would be happier—and just as effective—working four days instead of five.
Much of the push centers on the “100-80-100” model: workers receive 100% of their pay for working 80% of the time, while maintaining 100% of their productivity. The idea, endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), has gained traction through pilot programs run by 4 Day Week Global. Workers reported improvement in mental and physical health and life satisfaction, as well as less stress, burnout, fatigue, and work-family conflict.
Some companies have experimented with an alternative approach: compressing schedules into four 10-hour days, but there are trade-offs. One study found that longer days on the clock can strain employee health and make it more difficult to manage caregiving responsibilities, according to an analysis by APA. While job satisfaction increased under this model, absenteeism and productivity are often unchanged.
Jamie Dimon and Sam Altman agree: a reduced workweek is part of the future
While adoption of reduced workweeks remains limited, the idea is increasingly top of mind for business leaders—especially as AI reshapes the labor market. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon recently predicted that the workweek could eventually shrink to as little as three and a half days.
“I believe that 30 years from now, your kids are probably working three and a half days a week,” Dimon told CBS News in an interview that aired earlier this month.
In his latest letter to shareholders, Dimon added that advances in AI won’t just transform industries—they could also help people live “longer and safer” lives, in part by reducing how much they need to work.
Getting there, however, will take time—and coordination. OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, have urged companies and policymakers to start experimenting now.
“Incentivize employers and unions to run time-bound 32-hour/four-day workweek pilots with no loss in pay that hold output and service levels constant,” OpenAI recommended in its recent policy paper, Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age: Ideas to Keep People First. “Then convert reclaimed hours into a permanent shorter week, bankable paid time off, or both.”
