Copyright Inc. Magazine
The news outlet quotes David Autor, an MIT economics professor, explaining one key issue he thinks may be behind some layoffs that are being blamed on AI. “It’s much easier for a company to say, ‘We are laying workers off because we’re realizing AI-related efficiencies’,” he noted, compared to a company simply fessing up to the truth and issuing a statement like, “‘We’re laying people off because we’re not that profitable or bloated, or facing a slowing economic environment, etc.’.” He even went a little further, and argued that it was “wise” to attribute the reason to deploy AI tech, “whether or not AI were the reason,” possibly because of the optics of this ploy: it makes a company look like it’s operating at the cutting edge, and it’s a positive spin on otherwise devastating news. In the light of this, and very interestingly, NBC News also notes that an Amazon representative later tried to walk back the notion, promoted by Galetti, that AI was the motivating reason behind taking away the income of 14,000 people, and instead tried to argue it was merely an extension of a plan to “strengthen our culture and teams by reducing layers” that was begun last year. This somewhat contradicts a statement made by Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy in June, where he set out how he feels AI is going to revolutionize both the customer-facing work Amazon does, and also its internal operation. “As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs,” Jassy wrote. But maybe there’s something deeper going on here. As NBC notes, a recent survey by consultancy giant Deloitte found that only 10 percent of companies that had rolled out AI tools broadly said they saw “significant return on investment from agentic AI,” which is thought to be the most cutting-edge of AI tools, and the system that can, it’s promised, take over some mundane office tasks for the average worker. The message that AI is going to save people time is actually broadly supported by many of the workers who actually use AI, a recent survey found. The Global Workforce of the Future annual report by staffing and tech advisory company Adecco Group found that 77 percent of respondents who use AI said it let them carry out tasks that they hadn’t been able to previously, and 71 percent said there was nothing holding them back from an increased AI use. Meanwhile, just 20 percent of U.S. respondents said they thought AI would destroy jobs, and 90 percent thought it’d actually create new jobs. What’s going on here? And what does it mean for your company? Firstly, the jury really is still out on whether or not AI can truly transform businesses to the extent that they can successfully cut costs by eliminating certain types of worker — a separate survey found, for example, that some AI use may actually be costing companies time and money rather than saving it. So, if you are deploying AI tools into your business, the trick might be to not have too great expectations of money saving, and the wisest way to roll out this innovative tech may be to carefully choose the tools you’re using so that they’re actually applicable to your needs, and also educate your workers on the best way to use them efficiently. The other thing to think about is the messaging on AI deployments is still evolving. If, like Amazon, you make public-facing statements about the benefits that AI is bringing to your business, choose your words carefully — they may backfire, and imply that your business was bloated and inefficient, whether or not the news is accompanied by notice that you’re laying people off.
