HP announced it is reducing its corporate workforce due to AI initiatives, planning to cut between 4, 000 and 6, 000 jobs by the end of 2028, which it estimates will save about $1 billion. The company’s earnings report stated that these workforce reductions are part of a broader strategy to cut costs through platform simplification, program consolidation, and productivity measures, while also enhancing customer satisfaction, innovation, and productivity via AI adoption. Similarly, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna revealed earlier this year that the company replaced hundreds of human resources employees with AI. In November, IBM announced plans to cut thousands more jobs in Q4 2025, affecting a single-digit percentage of its global workforce. Krishna emphasized IBM’s focus on shifting hiring priorities toward AI and quantum computing, as well as increasing recruitment of recent graduates. He noted that AI adoption has led to more hires in programming and sales, while hiring for back-office roles like HR—positions AI can replace—has been slowed or halted. Krishna predicted that up to 30% of such roles could be automated over five years. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy acknowledged that AI-driven efficiency would reduce the company’s workforce in coming years; however, when announcing the recent cut of 14, 000 jobs in October, he stated the decision was culturally, not financially or AI-driven. An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the layoffs were unrelated to AI. According to Amazon’s senior VP of people experience and technology, Beth Galetti, the cuts reflect efforts to operate more like a startup in an AI-enabled era, recognizing AI as the most transformative technology since the internet, accelerating innovation. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff shared in an August podcast that AI agents replaced many human roles in customer support, allowing headcount to be reduced from 9, 000 to about 5, 000.

Salesforce clarified this was part of a several-month organizational transformation in the support division, successfully redeploying hundreds of employees to other areas such as professional services, sales, and customer success, aided by the deployment of AI tools like Agentforce, reducing the need to backfill support engineer roles. Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski stated in 2024 that the company could operate effectively with half of its current staff. The company’s AI assistant now handles the workload equivalent to 853 full-time agents (up from 700 at launch), saving an estimated $58 million annually. Following acknowledgment that prior cost-cutting had been excessive, Klarna redeployed workers to customer support roles. The CEO’s comments referenced the quality of outsourced support rather than AI limitations. The company continues to work with outsourced teams of around 2, 000 and only conducted a small internal pilot of under 10 people to improve outsourced agents’ quality, not to replace AI or human support entirely. Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman announced in September plans to reduce about 30% of its workforce—approximately 250 employees out of 762 full-time staff as of 2024—to transform Fiverr into a leaner, faster “AI-first company. ” Kaufman warned staff in April that AI threatens jobs and stated in May that future hires would need AI proficiency. “If you don’t ensure that you sharpen your knives, you’re going to be left behind. It’s that simple, ” he said. Overall, major technology companies are balancing workforce reductions with AI adoption by cutting back-office roles susceptible to automation, redeploying employees to AI-complementary jobs, and shifting hiring toward AI-related skills to increase efficiency, innovation, and competitiveness.