Many executives lately have been using AI as a convenient excuse to lay off staff as the economy crumbles. Paradoxically, a growing number of CEOs are also turning the tech on themselves — using AI as an excuse to get out while the gettin’s good.
New reporting by CNBC detailed the retirement of CEOs James Quincey and Doug McMillon of Coca-Cola and Walmart, respectively. In interviews with the outlet, both multi-millionaires cited AI as a reason for resigning their posts, arguing that they’re not the right people to manage the coming AI revolution.
Quincey, for example, told CNBC his resignation was fueled by “waves of organizational momentum.” The British-born executive first joined Coke in 1996, working his way up to chief executive in 2017. Quincey oversaw plenty of layoffs and strange market shifts in his day — but the AI wave, he insists, is a different beast altogether.
“My job is also to think who’s the best team to put on the field to get the next wave done. And I concluded that, actually, it was time to put someone else on the field for the next wave of growth,” he said. “In a pre-AI, a pre-gen-AI mode, we made a lot of progress. But now there’s a huge new shift coming along.”
(Something that went unmentioned: Coke’s foray into AI-generated commercials under Quincey’s watch — an uncanny spectacle that earned a good deal of mockery and disgust, but very little praise.)
McMillon, meanwhile, had sat as CEO of Walmart since 2014. He stepped down, he insists, to pass the baton to somebody “faster.”
“With what’s happening with AI, I could start this next big set of transformations with AI, but I couldn’t finish,” the former chief executive told CNBC. A year ago, he said, he started thinking hard about how “AI shopping” might upend the retail industry. ” I started thinking about everything that needs to happen over the next few years, and it really caused me to think that now was the right time [to retire],” McMillon said.
How this narrative holds up remains to be seen. In the immediate future, Walmart faces the dual challenge of trade tariffs and inflation, while Coke’s revenue growth has disappointed investors of late. With golden parachutes at the ready and AI-driven growth nonexistent, the tech could very well be playing cover to conveniently-timed exits.
Other CEOs, like the 62-year-old Adobe executive Shantanu Narayen, have been pushed out of the plane by investors who expected better performance in the age of AI.
Whether curmudgeonly CEOs or broader economic turmoil are to blame for each company’s respective woes is up for debate, in other words. Either way, the old guard clearly isn’t waiting around to find out.
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