Vanta Logo
SPONSOR
Automate SOC 2 & ISO 27001 compliance with Vanta. Get $1,000 off.
Up to date
Published
3 min read

Trevor I. Lasn

Staff Software Engineer, Engineering Manager

When Will We Have Our First AI CEO?

Welcome to the future of corporate leadership. It's efficient, profitable, and utterly inhuman

Picture a boardroom in 2035. The quarterly earnings call is about to begin. But instead of a human CEO clearing their throat at the microphone, an AI prepares to address shareholders, analysts, and the media. Sound far-fetched? Maybe not.

Language Models don’t need sleep. They don’t demand golden parachutes. They don’t play office politics or get caught in scandals. They process information without ego, make decisions without emotional baggage, and never get tired of reading shareholder reports.

Wall Street will love it. Imagine a CEO that maximizes shareholder value with ruthless efficiency. No more messy human considerations, no more PR nightmares from executive misconduct. Just pure, algorithmic pursuit of profit. The stock market already runs on algorithms - why not the companies themselves?

The dystopian aspect isn’t that AI will make worse decisions than humans. It’s that they’ll make better ones - better for the bottom line, worse for human dignity. When an AI CEO needs to choose between worker well-being and quarterly profits, there won’t be any sleepless nights or moral wrestling. Just cold, hard optimization.

The Point of No Return

Once companies start seeing the results - the increased efficiency, the reduced costs, the improved performance - there’s no going back. Boards will face shareholder pressure to implement AI leadership. Those who resist will be outcompeted by those who embrace it.

The first AI CEO won’t arrive with fanfare and controversy. It’ll slip in through the back door, first as a “decision support system,” then as an “automated strategic planner,” until one day we’ll realize humans are just rubber-stamping the AI’s decisions anyway.

The most unsettling part? We’ll probably be better off. AI CEOs won’t embezzle funds, play favorites, or make decisions based on ego. They’ll be transparent, consistent, and tireless in their pursuit of organizational goals. And that’s exactly what should terrify us - the moment when we realize that cold, calculating efficiency is exactly what capitalism has been driving toward all along.

If you found this article helpful, you might enjoy my free newsletter. I share developer tips and insights to help you grow your skills and career.


More Articles You Might Enjoy

If you enjoyed this article, you might find these related pieces interesting as well. If you like what I have to say, please check out the sponsors who are supporting me. Much appreciated!

Tech
3 min read

The Crutch Effect: How AI Tools Became A Crutch

Introducing The Crutch Effect

Sep 13, 2024
Read article
Tech
5 min read

Cloudflare Study: 39% of Companies Losing Control of Their IT and Security Environment

New research reveals a shocking loss of control in corporate IT environments

Oct 3, 2024
Read article
Tech
10 min read

Amazon's Rise to Tech Titan: A Story of Relentless Innovation

How Jeff Bezos' 'Day 1' philosophy turned an online bookstore into a global powerhouse

Sep 30, 2024
Read article
Tech
5 min read

Pkl: Apple's New Configuration Language That Could Replace JSON and YAML

A deep dive into Pkl, Apple's configuration language that aims to replace JSON and YAML

Nov 1, 2024
Read article
Tech
3 min read

Ghost Jobs Should Be Illegal

How fake job postings became a systemic problem in tech recruiting

Nov 15, 2024
Read article
Tech
5 min read

Can OSSPledge Fix Open Source Sustainability?

The Open Source Pledge aims to address open source sustainability challenges by encouraging companies to pay $2,000 per developer per year

Nov 17, 2024
Read article
Tech
5 min read

Understanding Agent2Agent (A2A): A Protocol for LLM Communication

An exploration of Google's new open protocol that enables different AI systems to exchange information and collaborate

Apr 13, 2025
Read article
Tech
5 min read

Repopack (now Repomix): Pack Your Entire Repository Into A Single File

A tool that packages your code to easily share with LLM models.

Oct 21, 2024
Read article
Tech
3 min read

Tattoos Won't Break Your Tech Career

Building a tech career with a sword tattooed on my neck

Dec 10, 2024
Read article

Become a better engineer

Here are engineering resources I've personally vetted and use. They focus on skills you'll actually need to build and scale real projects - the kind of experience that gets you hired or promoted.

Many companies have a fixed annual stipend per engineer (e.g. $2,000) for use towards learning resources. If your company offers this stipend, you can forward them your invoices directly for reimbursement. By using my affiliate links, you support my work and get a discount at the same!


This article was originally published on https://www.trevorlasn.com/blog/ai-ceo. It was written by a human and polished using grammar tools for clarity.