• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind

2

Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock

3

Mathematicians grapple with a ‘very rapid and very unsettling change’ as AI cracks yet another century-old problem

1

The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind

2

Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock

3

Mathematicians grapple with a ‘very rapid and very unsettling change’ as AI cracks yet another century-old problem
TechAI

Bill Gates says the winner of the A.I. race will be whoever creates a personal assistant—and it’ll spell the end for Amazon

Eleanor Pringle
By
Eleanor Pringle
Eleanor Pringle
Senior Reporter, Economics and Markets
Down Arrow Button Icon
Eleanor Pringle
By
Eleanor Pringle
Eleanor Pringle
Senior Reporter, Economics and Markets
Down Arrow Button Icon
May 23, 2023, 6:55 AM ET
Bill Gates, Microsoft's founder, on stage at an event in Washington.
Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates believes whoever creates the first personal agent that is taken up by consumers will win the A.I. race—but it’s bad news for Amazon.Alex Wong—Getty Images
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

The Microsoft founder has called time on Amazon’s business as we know it—saying A.I. will make the e-commerce giant obsolete.

Recommended Video

Billionaire philanthropist Gates added the developer destined to win the artificial intelligence race will be the one which manages to create a personal agent that can perform certain tasks to save users time.

“Whoever wins the personal agent, that’s the big thing, because you will never go to a search site again, you will never go to a productivity site, you’ll never go to Amazon again,” he explained.

This isn’t the first time that Gates has voiced his hypothesis about A.I. being used for personal agent duties.

In March, Gates theorized that services like large language models will be increasingly deployed as copilots to their human counterparts, or as he puts it: “like having a white-collar worker available to you.”

Exactly what that personal agent will do remains unclear—however, speaking on Monday during a Goldman Sachs and SV Angel event in San Francisco, Gates suggested A.I. copilots will “read the stuff you don’t have time to read” among other tasks.

The company to release such a model remains to be seen, with Gates expecting the winner to be a toss-up between an established player in Big Tech or a newcomer.

“I’d be disappointed if Microsoft didn’t come in there,” Gates said. “But I’m impressed with a couple of startups, including Inflection.”

Gates was referring to Inflection.AI—a company launched by DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman—which aims to “make personal A.I.s for every person in the world.”

Microsoft is certainly backing itself as the winner of the A.I. race, having invested $13 billion into OpenAI and integrated its newly relaunched Bing powered with ChatGPT services.

Likewise, Amazon doesn’t see itself as being out of the game, after CEO Andy Jassy told shareholders in a letter that the technology was a “big deal” to the company.

Generative A.I. and the large language models (LLMs) that power it are “core to setting Amazon up to invent in every area of our business for many decades to come,” Jassy wrote in the letter.

Amazon did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

When are we getting these ‘copilots’?

With companies sprinting to lead the A.I. pack, it’s not clear when a winner will emerge—and who it will be.

So consumers might be waiting a while before a convenient sidekick is available to them, Gates said, adding, until then, organizations will continue embedding existing generative A.I. technologies into their own products.

That’s before an additional delay may need to be factored in for regulation to be put in place, with tech leaders like Tesla’s Elon Musk and Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak signing an open letter asking for a six-month ban on the development of the technology until guardrails are put in place.

Sam Altman, founder of OpenAI, has also called for regulation—though he didn’t sign the open letter calling for a pause.

Gates similarly demurred, saying a ban wouldn’t solve any of the challenges facing humanity, because a global approach is unachievable.

Although Gates has consistently pointed out the dangers of A.I. should it be misused, he has also highlighted the positive outcomes the technology could bring to humanity.

He repeated such beliefs again this week, saying he hopes to see the technology deployed to improve drug development and improve the sector overall—despite warnings from the World Health Organization that bias could be built into drug trials if the technology is not adequately monitored and reviewed.

The cofounder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation added that LLMs, which can create compelling text, will impact white-collar workers, a theory supported by Goldman Sachs, which forecasted 300 million jobs will be lost or degraded by the technology.

Meanwhile, blue-collar workers stand to be pushed out of the workforce by robotics, Gates mused, saying that robot humanoids of the future will be cheaper than their human counterparts.

About the Author
Eleanor Pringle
By Eleanor PringleSenior Reporter, Economics and Markets
LinkedIn icon

Eleanor Pringle is an award-winning senior reporter at Fortune covering news, the economy, and personal finance. Eleanor previously worked as a business correspondent and news editor in regional news in the U.K. She completed her journalism training with the Press Association after earning a degree from the University of East Anglia.

See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • TikTok icon
  • YouTube icon

Latest in Tech

Jensen Huang made his $172 billion fortune on AI chips. His family’s $75 million gift to Vanderbilt argues art decides what technology is for
Big Techphilanthropy
Jensen Huang made his $172 billion fortune on AI chips. His family’s $75 million gift to Vanderbilt argues art decides what technology is for
By Sydney LakeJuly 23, 2026
4 hours ago
Thijn Lamers is Co-Founder and President, Noah.
Commentarystart-ups
Adyen co-founder: Europe does not need more ambition. It needs to stop hiding it
By Thijn LamersJuly 23, 2026
4 hours ago
Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Alphabet Inc.
AIAlphabet
Anthropic and SpaceX just handed Google the biggest profit quarter in company history—on paper
By Eva RoytburgJuly 22, 2026
11 hours ago
‘It’s called StreetEasy, not StreetHard’: Mamdani cracks down on scourge of ‘housefishing’ and ‘real estate slop’
Real EstateHousing
‘It’s called StreetEasy, not StreetHard’: Mamdani cracks down on scourge of ‘housefishing’ and ‘real estate slop’
By Tatiana SatauaJuly 22, 2026
14 hours ago
As Washington panics about Chinese AI, Jensen Huang says open-source models like Kimi are ‘excellent’ and should be embraced, not banned
AIChina
As Washington panics about Chinese AI, Jensen Huang says open-source models like Kimi are ‘excellent’ and should be embraced, not banned
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezJuly 22, 2026
14 hours ago
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sits next to U.S. President Donald Trump.
AITech regulation
OpenAI’s rogue hacking incident was a warning shot. Will it be a wake-up call to finally create AI safety regulation?
By Jeremy Kahn and Emily ForliniJuly 22, 2026
14 hours ago

Most Popular

The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind
Real Estate
The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind
By Nick LichtenbergJuly 22, 2026
18 hours ago
Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock
Success
Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock
By Sasha RogelbergJuly 20, 2026
3 days ago
Mathematicians grapple with a ‘very rapid and very unsettling change’ as AI cracks yet another century-old problem
AI
Mathematicians grapple with a ‘very rapid and very unsettling change’ as AI cracks yet another century-old problem
By Eva RoytburgJuly 21, 2026
2 days ago
OpenAI says its AI models secretly broke out of a secure test environment and hacked into AI company Hugging Face in order to cheat on an evaluation
Cybersecurity
OpenAI says its AI models secretly broke out of a secure test environment and hacked into AI company Hugging Face in order to cheat on an evaluation
By Jeremy Kahn and Emily ForliniJuly 21, 2026
2 days ago
Despite a $156 million contract, Knicks star Jalen Brunson still calls his parents for financial advice any time he makes a big purchase
Success
Despite a $156 million contract, Knicks star Jalen Brunson still calls his parents for financial advice any time he makes a big purchase
By Emma BurleighJuly 21, 2026
2 days ago
Scott Bessent casually says the U.S. has more than $1 trillion in gold—and that it doesn’t matter for the dollar
Economy
Scott Bessent casually says the U.S. has more than $1 trillion in gold—and that it doesn’t matter for the dollar
By Sasha RogelbergJuly 22, 2026
16 hours ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.