CEOs want to embrace AI. Many people cite this as a reason for layoffs.
For some, this disconnect has become difficult to ignore.
Rhys Cooper, a 30-year-old from Melbourne, recently quit his job as a data analyst due to growing concerns about AI. Cooper said that while the tools they were asked to use have so far not been as efficient as humans, every interaction felt like they were contributing to the technology that would eventually replace them.
“It was an impossible situation to overcome,” Cooper said.
Across industries, executives are encouraging employees to adopt AI through hackathons, training, and performance reviews to assess AI usage.
But while many tech companies leading the AI push have pointed to efficiency gains and focused resources on AI, they have also announced layoffs, reorganizations, and hiring slowdowns. Workplace observers told Business Insider that such a move could backfire by increasing fear among employees and discouraging them from embracing technology.
This year, major companies like Snap, Block, and Cisco are combining layoffs with AI.
Meta said this month it would lay off about 8,000 employees, saying the job cuts would offset “other investments” the company was making. The message was clear. That means fewer workers will be needed to fund technology spending. Meta also said it is shifting more than 7,000 employees to AI-focused projects.
A spokesperson said the changes “include job cuts, closing undisclosed positions, and reallocating thousands of employees to business-critical priorities across the company.”
While employers encourage workers to transition to AI, there is pessimism about the technology’s potential to reshape the workforce. In a May survey of nearly 1,500 U.S. adults by The Economist and YouGov, nearly three-quarters said they were at least somewhat worried about losing their jobs to AI.
Mark Marr, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Business, said employees are often far more skeptical of AI than executives, largely because they fear AI will put their jobs at risk.
Ma was part of a research team that analyzed more than 20 million Glassdoor reviews and thousands of company earnings reports to compare how employees and executives talk about AI. Bottom line: Employers who combine AI implementation with headcount reductions risk undermining the productivity gains they hope to achieve, as fear of employee layoffs can inhibit technology adoption.
“There are huge concerns about job security,” Ma said. “Despite these significant benefits, most employees remain reluctant to actually use or learn about AI.”
That resistance was on full display this month at several commencement speeches, where speakers were booed by students facing a tough job market.
Wendy Turner-Williams, co-founder and chief data and AI officer at AI consulting firm SymfraAI, said the threat of AI could be especially acute for people whose identities are closely tied to their work.
“People are rejecting the tone-deafness of leaders who talk about AI as if it’s a productivity miracle, but it’s the workers who are experiencing job losses,” she says.
“This new world”
The backlash comes as some leaders speak candidly about ongoing personnel changes at their companies.
Standard Chartered Bank announced this month that it would cut more than 7,000 jobs by 2030 as the bank looks to replace what group CEO Bill Winters described as “low-value human capital” with technology.
The message irritated some employees, and Winters later apologized for his choice of words on LinkedIn.
Mr. Winters “has long been clear about the need to transform our workplace into a skills-driven organization that provides our employees with future opportunities for higher-skilled, long-term employment,” the spokesperson said.
He is not alone in thinking that AI could take on some of the jobs currently performed by humans. In a global survey of 825 executives conducted by consulting firm Mercer in October, 99% of executives said they expected AI to lead to at least some job cuts over the next two years.
Some executives have recently softened their pessimism about AI. OpenAI’s Sam Altman said he was “glad to be wrong” about the impact AI has had on entry-level desk jobs. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang also recently rejected the view held by some CEOs that AI will cause disaster in the job market.
Larry Gadea said most leaders aren’t looking to replace workers with AI. CEO and founder of Envoy, a workplace software company. The goal, especially for venture-backed companies, is to win in the market, he said.
He said companies are trying to figure out “who will adapt to this new world,” which will depend on how willing people are to embrace AI.
Surveillance, scrutiny and pressure from AI
In some companies, the pressure to implement AI is manifested in employee check-ins with managers and performance reviews. More tools to track AI usage and public dashboards to rank top performers.
Business Insider previously reported that Meta’s decision to install software on the computers of U.S. employees that tracks keystrokes and mouse movements to train its AI has been criticized by some, Business Insider previously reported.
A Meta spokesperson said the AI agent needs real-world examples of how people use computers, and the company has safeguards in place to protect sensitive content.
Swagatam Basu, senior director analyst at consulting firm Gartner, said companies are pushing their employees to use AI because many of the dramatic productivity gains that executives expect from AI technology have yet to materialize.
He said many companies underestimate how difficult it will be to effectively integrate AI into their daily workflows.
The challenge of making AI work is causing friction within some companies. In a recent study by Writer and Workplace Intelligence, which surveyed 1,200 business leaders across five countries, just over half of respondents said the implementation of AI would “rip apart their companies.”
One bright spot for anxious workers is that not all companies are considering layoffs. For many companies, especially mid-sized ones, leaders are often hesitant to make significant headcount cuts because growth still relies on experienced employees and organizational knowledge, said Zivka Bachvalova, managing principal at advisory firm Baker Tilly.
“We’re still going to need people,” she said.
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