Companies may lay off employees for a variety of reasons, including failure to meet financial goals. It was overemployed. Tariffs and the loss of major customers have shaken up business.
Recently, however, many companies have turned their attention to a new element: artificial intelligence. Management expects big changes from technology and is currently cutting staff.
According to research firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, AI was cited in announcements of more than 50,000 job cuts in 2025.
Amazon on Wednesday announced 16,000 corporate layoffs, adding to the 14,000 corporate layoffs previously announced in the fall. “As we deploy more generative AI and agents, the way we work should change as we deploy more generative AI and agents,” CEO Andrew Jassy said in a blog post in June, adding, “Over the next few years, we expect this to reduce companies’ total workforces.” (He has since recanted the link between the layoffs and AI, and the company has since said most of the job cuts are to reduce bureaucracy. However, most analysts believe Amazon is cutting jobs to free up funds for investments in AI, such as data centers.)
Pinterest announced last month that it would cut about 15% of its workforce, in part to “reallocate resources to AI-focused roles.” Hewlett-Packard CEO Enrique Lores also said on an investor call in November that “we believe there is a huge opportunity to incorporate AI into HP,” which could lead to up to 6,000 job cuts over the next few years.
Investors may applaud these preemptive moves. But some skeptics (including in the media) suggest that companies are disingenuously blaming AI for layoffs, or “AI cleaning.” As market research firm Forrester said in a January report, “Many companies that have announced AI-related layoffs do not have mature, vetted AI applications ready for the role. This highlights a trend of ‘AI cleaning,’ which is driven by financially motivated layoffs for future AI implementations.”
This term reflects common expressions that describe misleading marketing practices, such as greenwashing and ethics washing. This started to pick up steam a few years ago, and its main purpose was to criticize companies that claim to be using AI when they aren’t. But recently, the term has been used more widely as a gesture to explain things like layoffs to companies that emphasize AI when the situation could become more complex.
“Companies are saying, “We’re looking forward to using AI to replace these jobs,” said Peter Cappelli, a professor at the Wharton School. “But that hasn’t happened yet. That’s one reason to be skeptical.”
Molly Kinder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies AI and jobs, said this type of preemptive layoff allows executives to signal to the market that “I’m cutting edge, I’m implementing AI, and I’m thinking about saving money.” This is a “very investor-friendly message” rather than “the business is struggling,” she said.
Of course, AI could ultimately transform the job market in technology and beyond. But a recent study Kinder worked on for the Yale Institute for Budget Research found that artificial intelligence has yet to drive meaningful change across markets. Tech companies have cut more than 700,000 employees worldwide since 2022, according to Layoffs.fyi, which tracks industry job losses. But much of it was a correction to overemployment during the pandemic.
This article was originally published in The New York Times.
