The robots are coming, but a fintech veteran says they’re not replacing human workers.
“I don’t think it’s coming for our jobs,” Affirm (AFRM) CEO Max Levchin told Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi at Yahoo Finance’s Invest event. “I’m a huge believer in this notion that AI and embodied AI is a collection of tools for us to lead better lives, to do more.”
The former PayPal co-founder started buy now, pay later (BNPL) service Affirm in 2012. The fintech offers a fee-free flexible payment system.
The BNPL market is poised to roar. According to a Federal Reserve report, 15% of Americans used BNPL in 2024. And 58% said they used the service to fund purchases they couldn’t otherwise afford. Affirm’s stock is up 25% in 2025.
AI remains a hot-button topic, and Levchin said humanoid robots won’t wreak havoc the way some fear. While robots that can cook eggs or do chores may still be some time in the future, once they become reality, he said, “it will open up our world to do more interesting, more intellectually stimulating jobs.”
The workforce will adapt to the loss of manual labor, Levchin argued. “It used to be real. I would hammer a piece of metal with my hammer, and that was real work, and now we have these machines that just do die-cutting and casting,” he said. “That happened a couple times in history, and we’ve always done better for ourselves as a species.”
Workers are divided in their sentiment about AI as it pertains to job losses, with many expressing some form of fear about being replaced. A survey by 4 Corner Resources revealed that 79% of its survey respondents said AI had an impact on their role.
Affirm recently reported solid fiscal first quarter 2026 results. Analysts have remained bullish, with Will Nance of Goldman Sachs rating the company a Buy with a price target of $94.
“We remain positive on the story and expect continued shares gains and high incremental margins will drive increasing valuation support and drive shares to outperform,” he wrote in a note.
JPMorgan’s Reginald Smith rated Affirm as Overweight with a $94 price target. “We expect Affirm to deliver premium volume growth (>20%) and expanding operating margins for the foreseeable future, driven by increased penetration at the company’s platform partners (Shopify, Amazon, Apple Pay) and continued growth in its rapidly scaling Direct to Consumer business (Affirm Card),” he wrote.
Meanwhile, Levchin remains confident that AI will have its place in humans’ futures. “We’re all going to be smarter because these systems have PhDs on any given topic,” he said. “They can educate us, they can bring us along, they can help us be more decisive.”