But Mark Dixon, CEO and founder of International Workplace Group (IWG) CEO isn’t buying it. From his vantage point, running the world’s largest flexible office provider—with more than 8 million users across 122 countries and 85% of the Fortune 500 among its customers—the math doesn’t add up.

“Everyone is focused on productivity, so no time soon,” Dixon says flatly.

“It’s about the cost of labor,” Dixon explains to Fortune. The U.S. and U.K. are experiencing significant cost-of-living crises. At the same time, he says, businesses are experiencing a “cost of operating crisis.” 

“Everyone’s having to control their labor costs because all costs have gone up so much, and you can’t get any more money from customers, so therefore you have to get more out of people.”

Essentially, companies can’t afford to pay the same wages for fewer hours, and they can’t pass the difference on to customers. So any time ‘freed’ by automation is far more likely to be filled with new tasks than handed back to workers. 

Elon Musk says work will be optional in the future—but this CEO says AI may create more work, not less

Silicon Valley’s loudest voices frame AI as a route to more leisure. The world’s richest person and the boss of Space X, Tesla and X, Elon Musk has gone as far as predicting work will be completely “optional” and more like a hobby, in as little as 10 years. 

In reality, Dixon suggests that this scenario would only happen if there’s not enough work to go around, rather than bosses suddenly becoming benevolent. But in his eyes, AI will most likely create more—not less—work. 

Every major technological shift, he argues, has followed a similar arc: fear of displacement, followed by an expansion of opportunity.

“AI will speed up companies’ development, so there’ll be more work, it’ll just be different work,” he says.

In 19th-century Britain, Dixon recalls English textile workers protesting against new automated machinery, fearing it threatened their livelihoods, lowered wages, and de-skilled their craft during the Industrial Revolution. They were called Luddites.

“They went around the country smashing up the looms to stop progress. But look, in the end, you’ve heard of the Industrial Revolution. That’s what came from those looms and factory production.” As mass production made goods more available, retail grew; more managers were needed to oversee the machines; the middle class grew, and so on. 

Likewise, there was a similar palpable fear when computers first burst on the scene in the 1980s. The 1996 book Women and Computers detailed people fearing becoming “a slave” to machines and feeling aggressive towards computers.”

But since the explosion of the PC (and then the internet, the Cloud, social media, and so on), most professions have undergone a digital rebrand—instead of disappearing altogether. 

Copywriters now use laptops instead of typewriters; designers rely on Adobe Photoshop instead of pen and paper; and a plethora of IT roles were created along the way. 

“It’s impossible to stop progress,” Dixon concludes.  

“Companies have to do what companies have to do, and it’s really important for young people coming into the marketplace to work a little bit harder on really selecting the right jobs, the right avenue, getting extra skills in things like AI. Whatever job you’re going to do, you’ve got to be good at tech.”

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will attend the Supreme Court’s oral argument Wednesday in a case involving the attempted firing of Fed governor Lisa Cook, an unusual show of support by the central bank chair.

Analysts are, understandably, uneasy. Their concern stems from President Trump’s claim that a bevy of European nations would face new tariffs within a matter of weeks if they did not support America’s bid to purchase Greenland, currently a territory of NATO member country Denmark, which is not putting the island up for sale.

At the time of writing, the VIX volatility index is up 27% over the past five days, its highest since April last year when the Oval Office announced sweeping tariffs on every nation on the planet. While markets in the U.S. are yet to have the opportunity to react to the news after being closed for the Martin Luther King holiday, assets in Europe are looking pale.

Germany’s DAX is down 1.57% at the time of writing, London’s FTSE is down 1.4% and France’s CAC 40 is down 1.2%. Asia is similarly queasy, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 is down 1.11% while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index is down 0.29%. A preview for U.S. trading comes in the form of futures, with the S&P 500 trending down 1.75% at the time of writing.

Meanwhile, gold prices—a barometer for investors fleeing to safety—are climbing higher still, up 1.17% overnight.

However, the damage could have been worse: investors don’t even need to cast their minds back a year for inspiration. Markets plummeted following Trump’s Rose Garden address on April 2, his so-called Liberation Day, despite the fact many of his threatened tariffs were delayed within a matter of days. And so the ‘TACO’ trade was born: Trump Always Chickens Out.

Jim Reid of Deutsche Bank noted to clients this morning that there’s “room for bigger moves” in markets, and highlighted that Trump’s duties imposition on key trading partners is already on shaky ground. This is on account of an imminent Supreme Court ruling on whether the White House’s initial round of tariffs were carried out legally. This “might end up further constraining Trump’s room for maneuver on tariffs. However, no one knows when this will come through (apart from maybe the judges).”

“The market has been burnt before by overreacting to tariff threats,” Reid continued. “Obviously, there was Liberation Day but more recently Trump’s escalation with China in October prompted a -2.71% decline for the S&P 500 on that day, before he then met with Xi and the trade truce was extended by a year.”

Over at UBS, chief economist Paul Donovan described a rational market: “Investors and the U.S. administration are likely to keep focus on the U.S. bond market, which weakened modestly in the wake of Trump’s latest tariff threats. The implications of additional tariffs are more U.S. inflation pressures and a further erosion of the USD’s status as a reserve currency. So far, bond investors do not seem to be taking the threats too seriously.”

Markets also “dismissed” another barb from Trump aimed at French President Macron, over duties levied on champagne and Bordeaux if the European leader refuses to cough up $1 billion to join the Board of Peace for Gaza.

Unconvinced traders

Further evidence of TACO traders comes from Polymarket. At the time of writing, only 17% of betters believe all the tariffs Trump has threatened against Europe will go into effect on February 1. A further minority of 40% believe any tariffs will go into effect in a fortnight’s time.

Odds are also declining on a country-to-country basis. For example, Denmark leads Polymarket’s polls as the most likely country to face levies from the U.S., but that still sits as the outlying outcome at 40% and decreasing. Meanwhile France’s odds of tariffs are at 38%, and Norway is at 37%.

Potentially buoying the idea that the president will make another U-turn is political polling, especially with midterm elections approaching in November. Trump’s approval ratings have been declining across a number of outlets, with nine in 10 Americans telling a Quinnipiac survey they were against taking Greenland using military force. A further Reuters/Ipsos poll found just 17% of voters support Trump’s efforts to acquire Greenland.

However, if investors—or foreign governments—rely too heavily on the notion that Trump will chicken out, they could shoot themselves in the foot. After all, if the White House sees markets behaving in a fairly stable manner, then this could give him the confidence to push ahead with the very plans that investors were betting against. As Deutsche Bank’s Henry Allen framed Trump’s August 1 tariff deadline last year: “The paradox is that as markets discount the tariffs and perform strongly, that’s actually making the higher tariffs more likely as the administration grows in confidence.”