We’re only halfway through the year, and with the unstoppable rise of AI in the tech industry, we’ve already seen around 100,000 jobs disappear, so we should be very worried. According to a report from Final Round AI, about 500 tech workers are losing their jobs to AI every single day. As mentioned in my article Forza Motorsport Hits The End Of The Road, Microsoft recently laid off 9000 employees, many of those AI AI-related, bringing the total for this year to over 15,000 employees. Most of the jobs now being lost to AI are in programming, cloud, gaming, and HR.
Chegg said that users prefer automated help over human agents. Many support roles are now considered nonessential.
Rise Of The AI Agents
Have you ever tried to solve a problem through a chatbot? I have, and it was a bloody nightmare on each and every occasion.
What Is An AI Agent?
AI agents are designed to operate independently, meaning they can take actions and make decisions based on their programmed goals and the information they gather, without constant human intervention. That’s not to say AI agents are sentient like Skynet from the Terminator films, but who’s to say that one day they won’t become that? Furthermore, they are not simply chatbots but sophisticated proactive systems that can even initiate actions and adapt their behaviour according to circumstances.
Do you see where this revolution is going? If a corporation can deploy AI agents to carry out the tasks of hundreds of employees at minimal cost, what hope is there for aspiring university students hoping to get a job in tech? But more than that, what hope is there for those who already have a job in tech, but now look over their shoulders for that pink slip to be handed to them, or even delivered by an AI agent?
“Empower all our customers to succeed…” What about your employees?
“…the future of social media.”
“We will need fewer people…”
The Insatiable Thirst For Corporate Profit?
Microsoft’s profits for the twelve months ending March 31st, 2025, were around $186bn, a rise of 12.8% year on year, so expect that to rise as AI is utilised more and more over human employees. That’s just one corporate example, so you don’t need to be a genius to figure out the bottom line for other corporations.
Will AI agents eventually be writing articles for DCT in my name? I certainly hope not!
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I work in tech and I feel Ai is great but also scary.
I find I have a love hate relationship with chatbots. I would rather use a live chat then having to be stuck in a call queue. I don’t mind having one for basic questions as if I can get a quick answer without waiting for a real person then I’m happy with that but often the chatbots still aren’t great at answering questions.
The bane of every employer is… employees. After I retired I was asked what the best part of retirement is. My answer, not having to deal with employees! I’m still good friends with a number of them but but most were a PITA and if AI, robots or any other tech could have replaced them I would have done so in a heartbeat.
Bottom line is that employees are very expensive and a very inefficient use of funds. If AI can reduce the number of employees and provide equal or even just ‘almost equal’ performance it just makes sense to do it. Businesses exist to make a profit and to not adopt cost saving measures would be irresponsible to the owners/shareholders.
With every technological advance comes new opportunities and new jobs so the smart ones will adapt.
Bruce, to be honest I think you’re generalising a great deal here and it largely depends on what kind of work the employee does.
I also used to run a business where we had a couple of employees assembling sophisticated emergency medical equipment that even nowadays couldn’t be done by robots.
I think it all started with the first push button.