Verizon CEO Dan Schulman thinks artificial general intelligence is closer than most people are planning for. At the Ford Pro Accelerate event in Detroit, he put the timeline at somewhere between six and 18 months.
The worst models you’ll ever use
Schulman made the remarks while speaking with Fortune’s Diane Brady. His core argument: AI is improving so fast that whatever you’re using right now is already obsolete in waiting.
“The models that we see today are the worst models we’ll ever use in our lives,” Schulman said. “Every two months, there’s a step function change in the power of the models. I think we get to some form of AGI in the next six to 18 months. I think it’s right on us.”
His forecast suggests AGI could land as early as the end of 2026
Verizon’s bet on becoming AI-native
Schulman is steering Verizon toward what the company calls an “AI-native” model, meaning AI is built into how the business operates rather than bolted on as a side project.
Verizon has a $1 billion agreement with Google involving dark fiber. The company is also pursuing edge-compute partnerships and negotiating additional AI infrastructure deals.
Why a telecom CEO’s AGI call matters
Verizon doesn’t sell a frontier model. It sells the pipes, fiber and networks that those models depend on. The Google dark fiber deal and the edge-compute push both fit that logic.
Verizon has laid out concrete milestones: the four-layer stack by November 2026 and AI infrastructure revenue contributions by 2027. Those dates give the market a way to measure whether the AI-native strategy produces results.
AGI has no universally agreed definition, which makes any timeline hard to verify. Schulman himself hedged with “some form of AGI,” leaving plenty of room for interpretation.
What to watch next: whether Verizon announces more infrastructure deals along the lines of its Google agreement, and whether the reskilling budget climbs toward the $60 million mark.
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