It really frustrated me when companies laid off a ton of people "because we can just replace them with AI" despite not validating that beforehand, and often needing to rehire people to do those jobs when AI wasn't the silver bullet they thought it would be.
It really frustrated me when companies laid off a ton of people "because we can just replace them with AI" despite not validating that beforehand, and often needing to rehire people to do those jobs when AI wasn't the silver bullet they thought it would be.
Which companies actually did that? I suspect it is largely a myth. They would certainly like to do that in order to save money but most companies wouldn't fire a lot of people unless they were very sure that AI could do their jobs which, at this point, they couldn't possibly be.
It really frustrated me when companies laid off a ton of people "because we can just replace them with AI" despite not validating that beforehand, and often needing to rehire people to do those jobs when AI wasn't the silver bullet they thought it would be.
Which companies actually did that? I suspect it is largely a myth. They would certainly like to do that in order to save money but most companies wouldn't fire a lot of people unless they were very sure that AI could do their jobs which, at this point, they couldn't possibly be.
IBM did that, but found that they couldn't replace everything with AI: https://resident.com/tech-and-gear/2025/05/27/ibm-replaced-8000-staff-with-aithen-rehired-them-heres-what-that-means
Klarna did that and started rehiring humans after AI customer service wasn't as good: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/klarna-ceo-sebastian-siemiatkowski-ai-job-cuts-hiring-b2755580.html
Dukaan seems to have fared better, but they seem to be the odd ones out: https://glassalmanac.com/a-year-after-firing-90-of-his-staff-and-replacing-them-with-ai-this-ceo-shares-his-first-review/