Which Two White-Collar Jobs Will AI Browsers Make Obsolete?

Aravind Srinivas, the head of Perplexity AI, believes his company’s new AI tool, Comet, could soon take over a large part of the everyday responsibilities handled by two major roles inside companies: recruiters and executive assistants. He is not talking about a distant future. He expects this change to start happening within the next six months.

He shared this view during an episode of The Verge’s podcast “Decoder.” Srinivas insists this is not just another tech leader making big promises to get attention. He points to real examples of what Comet can already do today. According to him, the tool is already proving that it can manage work that once required human effort. 

If his prediction turns out to be true, it will not just affect recruiters and executive assistants. It could mark the beginning of a deeper shift in how businesses function, how offices are run, and how knowledge workers carry out their everyday tasks.

The Rise of AI Browsers: Moving Past Regular Search

To see why Srinivas thinks these jobs could disappear, we first need to look at what makes AI browsers like Comet so different from the usual browsers people use every day. Browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, or Safari are mainly tools for finding and viewing information. AI browsers, on the other hand, do much more. They can plan, reason, and carry out complicated tasks from start to finish with very little help from humans.

Comet is Perplexity’s attempt to build what they call an “AI operating system for knowledge workers.” It does more than just search the web. It combines advanced reasoning with browsing, which means you can give it a simple instruction in plain language and watch it complete tasks that would normally take hours of manual effort. This is not only about speeding up searches. It is about handing entire workflows to artificial intelligence and letting it do the heavy lifting.

People who have tried Comet early on have shared striking stories. One user asked the browser to make a restaurant reservation while they were busy writing an article. Comet handled it on its own, no extra steps required. This kind of autonomous task handling is a big leap forward. It turns the browser from a simple tool for finding information into something that can actually finish the job, and that is exactly why some roles in the workplace could soon be replaced.

The First Target: Recruiters in the Crosshairs

People have always thought of recruiting as a human job. It’s supposed to rely on gut instinct, empathy, and knowing how company culture works. But Aravind Srinivas sees it differently. He thinks a lot of recruiting today has turned into a rinse-and-repeat kind of process, something a machine can actually do faster and better than we can.

The hiring process usually follows a pattern. First, you write up the job description and start looking for candidates. Then you go through resumes, schedule interviews, check references, and eventually talk money. Most of these steps are really about sorting through a lot of information, spotting patterns, and ticking off boxes in a certain order. And that’s exactly the kind of thing AI is built to do well.

Take the part where recruiters search for candidates. Right now, a person might spend hours scrolling through LinkedIn or job boards, digging through profiles to find a few good matches. But a tool like Comet, powered by AI, could check thousands of profiles in a snap. It could use smart filters to match skills, experience, and more, way faster than any person. It could even write and send personalized messages, follow up, and book the first interview without anyone lifting a finger.

Then there’s screening, which is another time-suck. Recruiters often have to read piles of resumes or do quick phone screens just to make sure people meet the bare minimum. AI could take over here, too. It could read through resumes, check out social media, scan portfolios, and even start conversations using natural language tools. It could ask real interview-style questions, compare the answers to what the company wants, and spit out a shortlist of people who actually fit the job.

One of the biggest things AI has going for it is stamina. It doesn’t need breaks. It doesn’t get tired or miss details after reading the hundredth resume. It could go all day, every day, handling way more applications than any team of humans could keep up with.

But even with all that, recruiters won’t disappear. Not completely. Some jobs still need a real human touch. When it comes to high-level hires, hard-to-fill technical roles, or anything that needs a deep understanding of people and culture, humans still have the edge. For now, AI will probably take over the high-volume stuff, entry-level job,s and roles that follow the same steps every time. That’s where speed matters, and that’s where AI shines.

The Second Target: Executive Assistants Face Obsolescence

Executive assistants have always been the go-to people behind the scenes, keeping things from falling apart for top execs. They set up meetings, keep track of calendars, handle a flood of emails, and often deal with problems before they ever reach the boss. For years, the job has needed someone with good instincts, someone you can trust, someone who can keep ten things moving at once without dropping any of them. It’s the kind of work that felt way too human for a machine to handle.

Aravind Srinivas argues that this is no longer the case. He believes AI browsers can now handle most executive assistant duties faster, more accurately, and with fewer mistakes. This shift is driven by how much of modern business now takes place online, and by how advanced task automation has become.

Scheduling is the clearest example. An AI browser can link to multiple calendar systems, spot scheduling conflicts, and arrange meetings with several participants at once. It can even take into account time zones, travel needs, and personal preferences before sending out invites and reminders without human input.

Email management is another task ready for automation. AI browsers can read incoming messages, sort them by priority, draft replies for common questions, and highlight the ones that truly need attention. Over time, the AI can learn the executive’s tone and style, so its responses sound like they came directly from the executive.

Travel planning, once a demanding part of the job, also becomes effortless. An AI browser can search dozens of travel sites, compare prices, book flights, reserve hotels, and update itineraries. If a flight is delayed, it can automatically rearrange connecting flights or ground transport.

Even research and document preparation can be offloaded. AI browsers can gather information from multiple sources, summarize it, and format it into polished reports.

Much like recruiters, executive assistants will see their routine tasks automated first, while relationship-driven responsibilities may remain human. But as companies look to cut costs, the shift could happen quickly especially in a world where remote work is the norm.

Technical Capabilities Driving the Transformation

AI is moving fast, and it’s starting to take on jobs that used to feel out of reach. The main reason? A bunch of big tech leaps over the past few years. Large language models, for one, have gotten scary good at reading, writing, and understanding human language. They can sift through messy chunks of text, hold pretty natural conversations, and do tasks that used to need a human brain.

AIs have also gotten a lot better at thinking through things. These systems can take a messy problem, break it into smaller parts, and tackle each one in order. That kind of step-by-step thinking is a big deal for jobs like recruiting or being an executive assistant, where you’ve got to plan ahead, juggle different priorities, and make smart calls with lots of moving parts.

Another reason AI is catching on so fast is that it plays nicely with the tools companies already use. AI browsers can link up directly with calendars, databases, email systems, and websites. With APIs doing the connecting, AI doesn’t need a company to rip out all its tech and start from scratch. It just fits in and starts working.

And it’s not just fast, it’s learning faster too. AI can pick up on a company’s routines, get a feel for how individual users work, and improve the more it’s used. That kind of on-the-fly learning used to be a human thing. Now machines are creeping into that territory too.

Still, it’s not all smooth sailing. AI has blind spots. It messes up when context isn’t clear. It can’t really make moral calls. It’ll fumble things a person would catch without thinking. And when it comes to emotions or sensitive conversations, it’s just not there yet. These gaps might slow down how fast AI fully takes over certain jobs, at least for now.

Industry Response and Adaptation Strategies

Across all kinds of industries, companies are starting to face a hard truth: AI is replacing jobs. Some are diving in fast, using AI to slash costs and pull ahead of the competition. Others are being more cautious, choosing to use AI to help workers instead of pushing them out.

That slower path, often called augmentation, is all about teaming up human smarts with machine power. Take recruiters, for example. They might let AI search through resumes and write up outreach emails, but still handle the human stuff, the interviews, the conversations, the gut-check moments. The same goes for executive assistants. AI might sort the calendar and clean up the inbox, but the assistant still deals with the trickier problems, the ones that need quick judgment and experience.

In places like law firms, consultancies, and other professional service jobs, companies are going all-in on training and tech upgrades. They know the real win isn’t in replacing people, but in getting humans and AI to work well side by side. They're rewriting job descriptions so employees spend their time on the things AI still can’t do, thinking creatively, making tough calls, dealing with nuance, while AI picks up the boring, repetitive stuff.

Schools are catching on, too. Colleges and universities are changing what they teach. They’re shifting focus toward the things machines still struggle with: creativity, people skills, strategy, and deep problem-solving. The aim is to get students ready for a world where working with AI is part of the job, not a threat to it.

The Human Element: What AI Cannot Replicate

Even with how powerful AI tools like Comet have become, there are still parts of human work that machines just can't do, not now, maybe not ever. These gaps show why some jobs will stick around no matter how smart the tech gets.

One big limit is emotional intelligence. AI might pick up on tone or certain words and give a response that sounds okay, but it doesn’t really feel anything. It can’t truly understand what someone’s going through or build trust the way people can. In jobs where you have to calm someone down, settle a conflict, or talk through something sensitive, you need a human. Those moments go deeper than facts or patterns; they’re about connection.

Creativity’s another spot where humans still win. Sure, AI can mash together ideas it’s seen before, but it’s not going to come up with something wild and new out of nowhere. Real breakthroughs often come from gut feelings, weird life experiences, or sudden sparks that don’t follow any logic. Innovation isn’t just remixing; it’s seeing something no one else saw, and machines don’t have that kind of vision.

Then there’s strategy, especially in messy situations. AI is great when the rules are clear and the data is clean. But real life isn’t like that. Decisions often happen with missing info, clashing priorities, or strange political and social pressures. Humans are better at reading the room, thinking around corners, and making judgment calls when the path forward is fuzzy.

And finally, there’s ethics. AI can stick to the rules someone gave it, but when new moral questions pop up, it doesn’t know what to do. It can’t weigh values or feel what’s right. It can’t be wise. And a lot of the time, that’s what we need most, not just smart, but wise. That’s still something only people can offer.

Economic and Social Implications

If recruiters and executive assistants are replaced as Srinivas predicts, it would only mark the start of a larger economic shift. These workers would be pushed into a growing pool of professionals searching for new opportunities in a job market increasingly shaped by automation.

The money saved from all this AI-driven change will mostly go to companies and, maybe, to customers. Businesses could run leaner, faster, and cheaper, and that might mean lower prices at the checkout. But the tradeoff could be rough. If this shift moves faster than people can learn new skills or find new work, the social costs could be high.

One of the biggest dangers is a deeper income gap. If AI wipes out a lot of solid, middle-income jobs and mostly leaves behind low-paid service work and high-end creative roles, we could end up with a two-layer economy: rich folks at the top, struggling workers at the bottom, and not much in between. That’s bad news for the middle class and for any kind of economic balance.

Some places will get hit harder than others, too. A lot of jobs, like recruiting and executive assistin,g are packed into big cities and business-heavy regions. If those jobs disappear, it won’t just hurt the workers doing them. Local economies could take a hit. Fewer office workers means fewer people spending money on food, transport, dry cleaning — the whole web of services that keep city life moving. It could mess with entire urban job markets, not just the office crowd.

Preparing for the Transition

For people in roles most at risk, the smartest move is to prepare rather than wait. Many professionals are already taking steps to adapt, learning new skills, and exploring career paths that AI cannot easily replace.

Recruiters can focus on the areas where human judgment still matters most. Executive search, cultural evaluation, complex negotiations, and long-term workforce planning depend heavily on personal insight and experience. Building a strong network and a reputation in specialized niches could offer protection from automation.

Executive assistants have a similar path. Many are shifting toward roles that involve strategy and decision-making rather than just administrative support. Skills in project management, business analysis, and technical knowledge can help them move into positions similar to a chief of staff jobs that combine organization with higher-level thinking.

Both professions should also develop AI literacy. Learning how to work alongside AI tools instead of competing with them could turn automation into an advantage. Those who master these tools may not only keep their value but also find new ways to create it.

Entrepreneurship offers another path. As Srinivas himself pointed out, AI could empower displaced workers to build new businesses or invent entirely new job categories that do not exist today.

The Timeline: Six Months or Longer?

Srinivas’s claim that this shift could happen within six months is bold, even for Silicon Valley. While the technology is advancing quickly, several factors could slow its rollout.

Regulations around data privacy, labor laws, and compliance may delay automation in certain industries. Companies will also face challenges in training staff, reorganizing workflows, and overcoming resistance to change.

AI reliability remains another concern. Businesses may prefer to phase in automation gradually, keeping human workers until they are confident that the systems can handle real-world demands without mistakes.

Finally, client and stakeholder preferences could slow adoption. In areas like executive hiring or confidential support, many people may still prefer dealing with a human rather than a machine.

Also Read:

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• From Manual to Automated: Transforming Everyday Tasks with AI Agents in Business
  

Conclusion

Aravind Srinivas’s prediction that AI browsers could replace recruiters and executive assistants highlights a shift that is already underway in the workplace. The exact timing is still unclear, but the direction is obvious. As AI grows more capable and businesses feel greater pressure to cut costs, automation will only move faster.

The real challenge is finding a way to manage this change without leaving people behind. That means careful planning, constant learning, and a willingness to adapt from individuals, companies, and society as a whole.

For professionals in at-risk roles, the lesson is simple: start preparing now. Those who pay attention to these trends, build skills that AI cannot replace, and learn to work alongside these tools will be in the strongest position to succeed.

For businesses, the opportunity comes from blending AI with human abilities. Companies that integrate these technologies wisely can improve efficiency while still protecting the value that only people can bring.

The future of work is already taking shape. Those who act early and adapt will have the best chance to thrive. The question is no longer whether AI browsers will transform these professions; it is how quickly and how deeply that transformation will happen.

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