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While layoffs continue in a historically solid stock market and resilient economy, it is still rare that companies directly connect job cuts to AI replacement technology.
IBM was an aberrant value when His CEO said to the Wall Street Journal In May, these 200 HR employees were released and replaced by AI chatbots, while declaring that the company’s overall workforce reinvested elsewhere.
The company Fintech Klarna has been among the most transparent to discuss how AI is transformed – and narrowing – of its workforce. “The truth is that the company has gone from around 5,000 to nearly 3,000 employees,” said Klarna CEO, Sebastian Siemiatkowski “if you go to LinkedIn and look at the jobs, you will see how we shrink.”
But employment experts suspect that IBM and Klarna are not alone in purges linked to AI. It is just that companies often limit their explanations to terms such as reorganization, restructuring and optimization, and that terminology could be disguised.
“What we probably see is the reshaping of the workforce focused on AI, without the recognition of the public,” said Christine Ingge, an instructor of professional and executive development at Harvard University. “Very few organizations are ready to say:” We replace people with AI “, even if that is indeed what is happening.”
“Many companies are counting on these euphemisms as a shield,” said Jason Leverant, Chief of the Operation and President of Atwork Group, a national endowment franchise that provides more than 40,000 workers to businesses in a variety of sectors. Leverant says that it is much easier to frame the reductions of the workforce as a component of a broader operational strategy than to admit that they are directly linked to the efficiency found following the implementation of the AI. “Companies that take place by adopting the adoption of large -scale AI are far too fortuitous to ignore,” said Leverant.
Candice Scarborough, director of cybersecurity and software engineering at Parsons Corporationsaid it is clear from recent strong gains that layoffs are not a response to financial difficulties. “They align themselves well with the deployment of major AI systems. This suggests that jobs are eliminated after the introduction of AI tools, not before,” said Scarborough.
She added that using more vague terms can be better messaging. Restructuring seems proactive; Optimization of companies seems strategic; And the emphasis on cost structures seems impartial. “But the result is often the same: the displacement by software. The sandbag of these cuts under a bland language helps companies to avoid” AI counterpouss “while going forward with automation,” said Scarborough.
Many companies reduce roles in content, operations, customer service and HR – where generative AI and agency tools are increasingly able – while sending business decisions messaging as “efficiency” moves despite healthy balance sheets.
“This silence is strategic,” said Inge. “Being explicit on the movements of AI invites the return of the flame of employees, the public and even regulators. Staying vague helps preserve morale and manage the optics during the transition behind the scenes.”
Sending a change in work of risky artificial intelligence
Inge and other experts claim that there is also a risk management measure in decisions to deactivate AI in employment elimination. Even companies wishing to take advantage of AI to replace workers often realize that they have overestimated what technology can do.
“There is absolutely an undercover current of AI behind many of today’s efficiency layoffs, especially in back office and customer service roles,” said Taylor Goucher, Vice-President of Sales and Marketing at Connex Global, an IT outsourcing company. Companies invest massively in automation, known as Gouchcher, but companies are sometimes obliged to backpedal.
“The AI could automate 70% to 90% of a process, but the last mile still needs the human touch, especially for the AQ, judgments and on -board cases,” said Goucher.
Taking the hybrid model of human and AI would be more likely for the early adoption phase, but once the jobs have left, companies are more likely to turn to third-party hiring companies or foreign markets before jobs based in the United States returned. “When the AI does not work, they outsource or rehthe quietly on a global scale to fill the gap,” said Gouchper.
Most companies will limit information on these strategic labor market changes.
“They fear the passage of employees, customers and skeptical investors regarding the promises of the half -cooked AI,” said Goucher. Many companies publicly praise their AI strategy, while quietly hiring qualified offshore teams to manage what AI cannot, he added. “It is a strategy, but not always complete. The leaders must be more honest at the place where AI adds value and where human expertise is always irreplaceable,” he said.
Ing is suitable that if AI can do a lot, it cannot yet replace an entire human.
“The AI can do a lot of 90%. AI writes a better advertising copy, but a human judgment is still necessary. This 10%where human judgment is necessary, we are not going to see it replaced in the short term. Some companies are getting rid of it 100%, but that will come back to bite them,” said Inge.
Mike Sinoway, CEO of the San Francisco software company, Lucidworks, said that the limits of the current AI – and a more omnipresent lack of certainty in the following C on adoption – are reasons to believe that AI has not yet been directly responsible for many layoffs. Rather than deteriorating the problem of the place where the AI already replaces workers, Sinoway said that his business’s research suggests that “the highest-ups are panicking because their efforts of AI have not started.”
The first to be said at AI took their jobs: 1099 workers
From two to three years old, the self -employed were among the first employees with which companies were direct in the discussion of the role of AI in job cuts.
“Often, they are told that they are replaced by an AI tool,” said Inge. “People are ready to say that to a person of 1099,” she added.
Writing, graphic design and video editing have brought the weight of changes, according to Inge, and now the work of work has started to make its way in full -time strength. Inge says that transparency is the best policy, but that may not be enough. She pointed out backlash This language learning company Duolingo Face to face when CEO Luis von Ahn announced his intention earlier this year to eliminate entrepreneurs in favor of AI, then was forced to resume some of his comments.
“After the enormous reaction that Duolingo was confronted, companies are afraid of saying that it is what they do. People will get angry that AI replaces jobs,” said Inge.
For the moment, the labor market is solid, if it shows some signs of softening in the first half. The American unemployment rate fell to 4.1% in June 2025, which according to Commercial economysignals large stability of the labor market. But there is also a general agreement that over time, the rate of change of employment linked to AI will accelerate. According to the World Economic Forum 2025 Future report of jobs41% of employers around the world intend to reduce their workforce over the next five years due to AI automation. The CEO of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, recently predicted a generative AI as the model of large language of his office could erase up to half the jobs of entry -level workers.
There will be a tilting point in the future when companies are more uniformly transparent, but at that time, the role of AI on the labor market will be obvious.
“Until then, it will not matter,” said Inge. “The job losses will be extremely important, the only thing we can do as an individual is adaptation.”
