And if a team of employees is 20% more efficient, it’ll get 20% more done, she says, as opposed to laying off a fifth of the team. To ensure that additional work needs to be done, AI is also being used to grow the business, which generates more revenue and creates more work for people to do. “You hired employees for a reason,” she says. “Value that, and help them grow.”
Behind the headlines
On the surface, it might seem naïve for companies to talk about AI building people up and improving jobs when there’s so much negative news about its potential impact on employment. For example, Ford CEO Jim Farley recently predicted that AI will replace half of all white-collar workers in the US. Also, Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman sent a memo to his team in which he said, “AI is coming for your job. Heck, it’s coming for my job, too. This is a wake-up call. It doesn’t matter if you’re a programmer, designer, product manager, data scientist, lawyer, customer support rep, salesperson, or a finance person. AI is coming for you.”
Several tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Salesforce have also been talking about how much of their work is already being done by AI. Of course, tech executives could just be hyping the technology they sell. But not all AI-related layoffs may actually be due to AI.
