In the midst of a sluggish job market, the headlines are grim: “Tens of Thousands of White-Collar Jobs Are Disappearing as AI Starts to Bite (1),” “Nearly a Million Jobs Just Vanished (2)” and “White-Collar Workers Are Getting the Blues (3).”
Meanwhile, executives are betting on artificial intelligence (AI) as a way to grow without adding people. Reporting in The Wall Street Journal shows major corporations have shifted their stance toward adopting the technology to keep headcount flat or even reduce it while chasing higher profits (4).
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The shift is not limited to tech firms either: It’s spreading across industries, from finance to retail, as leaders look for tools that streamline routine work. Workers can already feel the ground moving underneath them as AI takes over entry-level jobs and more mid-level job postings ask for AI experience.
Following recent layoffs at corporations like Amazon, Microsoft, Target and UPS, there may be an overwhelming sense of dread among job seekers and those clinging to their roles. So, what does this mean for workers and job seekers?
Is AI our new normal or just a high-tech excuse?
Tech CEOs continuously extol the benefits of AI. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told employees in June that efficiency gains from AI are expected to shrink the company’s corporate workforce over the next few years (5). Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke went further by making AI a gatekeeper for new hires, telling teams in March they must prove a job cannot be done with AI before requesting more resources, including more staff (6).
But while such proclamations and news of mass layoffs may prompt some to suggest the age of AI restructuring has arrived, others see things differently. While AI may have played a role in the downsizing, experts told The New York Times a transition to AI-driven workplaces is likely to be gradual, particularly at more established companies (7). Instead, present layoffs may be more about holding margins steady while investing in the new technology.
Adoption also seems to be occurring more rapidly at tech companies. At a summit in July, Nvidia CEO and co-founder Jensen Huang stated “100% of our chip designers use AI,” as it frees them to pursue ideas.
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“The one thing that we know for certain is that if you’re not using AI, you’re going to lose your job to somebody who uses AI,” he said.
The genie isn’t going back in the bottle
Whether AI is going to reliably replace all the office jobs that rely on human understanding is an undecided question. But how workers can position themselves now for the future is clear. Those that put in the effort to reskill with AI tools will probably fare better than those that sit back and watch the world evolve around them.
Microsoft’s 2025 Work Trend Index details how workers will start using single-use agents for individual tasks, and as workplaces find more uses for AI agents, those entities will be added to teams as “digital colleagues (8).” The report insists that AI agents are meant to augment a human’s productivity under human direction.
Some of the human qualities that make for great AI directors are similar to those that make good human managers, experts suggested to the World Economic Forum (9). These include excellent communication skills, a strong grounding in ethics, domain knowledge and a problem-solving mindset. They’re hard to automate and underpin good judgment.
Whether AI will replace human work or just provide an excuse to load more work on already overworked employees is a negotiation already happening in board rooms across the country, as companies attempt to strike the right balance of automation without sacrificing irreplaceable human skills.
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Article sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.
The Wall Street Journal (1, 4); U.S. News (2); Revelio Labs (3); Amazon (5); @tobi (6); The New York Times (7); Microsoft (8); World Economic Forum (9)
This article originally appeared on Moneywise.com under the title: As more companies seek to shrink staff and boost profits thanks to AI, where does this leave human workers?
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