Executives have been talking about artificial intelligence over the years as a mechanism that would enhance employees. Practically a more definite trend has been developed, some tasks are being engineered out of the job altogether and headcount plans are already beginning to indicate that fact.
This is not a homogeneous change in industries or job families. Artificial intelligence can lead to layoffs in a single area of a company and recruitment in another, even inside the same company, especially in the technical and revenue-facing business. The next seven companies that have clearly linked workforce adjustments with AI adoption or AI-facilitated effectiveness follow.
1. HP
HP has linked productivity programs that involve AI to future workforce reduction. The company stated in an earnings report that it was planning to retrench 4,000 to 6,000 employees by the end of 2028, and that the program would save the company approximately 1 billion on average. Its earnings documents talked about its measures of product productivity as well as its adoption and enablement of the artificial intelligence as a scale of its operating model.
2. IBM
IBM has been strangely open on the areas where AI replaces office jobs. Arvind Krishna, who is the CEO, said that the company substituted hundreds of human resources workers with AI, a role in which the work is frequently rule-based and process-driven. IBM has also talked of slowing or halting recruitment of some back-office jobs that might be automated and presented AI as a means of redirecting talent into more important factors, such as programming and sales. Krishna in previous statements was able to sum up the inner reasoning succinctly: 30 percent of that would be easily replaced by AI and automation in five years.
3. Amazon
In the messages of Amazon, two concepts that are becoming more prevalent in big businesses, cultural restructuring and AI efficiency, are being separated. The use of AI in making the company more efficient, CEO Andy Jassy has stated that its workforce would end up being reduced over time, but the company has also contended that there are certain significant cuts that were due to faster operations of the company and less bureaucracy.
In a blog post that is associated with a previous reorganization, Beth Galetti, senior vice president, wrote, “This is the most revolutionary technology we have seen in a long time, as the internet, and it is allowing companies to innovate more quickly than they ever had. The combination equals a known formula: reduced levels of layers, increased automation and a workforce that is tailored to speed.
4. Salesforce
The salesforce has identified the AI agents as a lever within the context of customer support, a sphere traditionally characterized by staffing ratios. Marc Benioff, the CEO, said that with the help of AI agents, a major restructuring of the support headcount was possible: I was able to rebalance my head count on my support. I have decreased it to 9,000 heads to approximately 5,000 since I do not require as many heads. Not filling some support-engineer positions and redeploying employees into other areas have also been characterized by the company as it rolled out its agent tools.
5. Klarna
The story of Klarna headcount demonstrates that AI implementation can be integrated with so-called natural attrition broke down into the role becoming vacant due to the lack of a new position. CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski estimated that the firm employs approximately 3,000 people and anticipated that the number would decrease to less than 2,000 workers by the year 2030. Another effect of automation in service work that Klarna has emphasized is its capacity to reduce the human workload: its AI assistant was said to be able to handle the workload of 853 full-time agents. Another assertion that has been advanced by Siemiatkowski is that human connection work will not be eliminated and other job groups will shrink as the software takes over routine jobs.
6. Fiverr
At Fiverr, AI has found a way to position itself as a strategic identity rather than a source of internal technology. Micha Kaufman, the CEO, announced that the company was reducing its staff by approximately 30 percent approximately 250 employees and termed it as a leaner, faster AI-first company. Kaufman has been unkind in his public remarks on the pressure in the labor market as well: AI was coming to take your jobs, Kaufman wrote in a staff memo, then continued that the company was going to focus on hiring individuals who understand how to utilize AI efficiently.
7. WiseTech
WiseTech linked layoffs to AI-driven efficacy in the software development and operations. CEO Zubin Appoo claimed the logistics software maker was reducing its workforce of 2,000, or 30 percent, of employees, using the excuse that AI would allow more to be done with less. Appoo also made a personal prediction concerning engineering as well: “I am willing to make a very simple prediction about the nature of engineering: the days of writing code as the fundamental performance of engineering are gone. He, on his part, said that in certain tasks, such as customer service, a worker in every two will be gone, suggesting that automation will alter the staffing floor, and not the tooling.
In these cases, AI is not considered an isolated product release. It is an operating assumption: work is broken down into tasks, tasks are automated and roles are reformed around what cannot be automated, namely, relationship management, non-routine judgment and accountability at the systems level. The implication on the contemporary organizations is structural. The workforce plans are becoming more and more like the technology roadmap, where the number of people is determined by what the software can handle and not what it needs to handle.
