The ongoing dialogue regarding the ever-imminent displacement of white-collar workers by AI is predicated on the assumption that the technology will become as skilled as the very workers it threatens to displace, thereby cutting labor costs. But a new study found that’s not quite what’s playing out in many companies that have carried out AI-related layoffs.
“Looking only at layoffs is shortsighted in terms of getting value from AI,” Helen Poitevin, VP analyst at Gartner and a key researcher of the study, told Fortune. “Chasing value only through headcount reduction is likely to lead most organizations down a path of limited returns.”
Poitevin said the companies reporting high ROI were not the same ones reporting AI-related workforce reductions. In fact, workforce reduction rates were nearly equal for those reporting higher ROI and those with smaller returns or even worsened outcomes from autonomous operations.
“That’s not where the value is,” she said of layoffs. “That’s not where the productivity gains are going to be.”
Instead, the study found companies with the highest gains were those using AI as a form of “people amplification,” implementing the technology to make workers more productive rather than outright replacing them.
There’s a growing divide today in how global business leaders are approaching AI adoption. In a separate Gartner survey of CEOs and other business executives, about one-third said they expect autonomous AI to help humans make decisions, but stop short of making those decisions independently. But another 27% said they expect AI to do exactly that, with minimal or no human involvement.
“When you strain a system more than, you know, than it’s usually strained, it’s possible you get these weird behaviors and this big disruption,” he said.
“I don’t know what the exact percentage is, but there’s some AI washing where people are blaming AI for layoffs that they would otherwise do, and then there’s some real displacement by AI of different kinds of jobs,” he said.
But Poitevin said the data shows these layoffs, even if related to AI, appear to be a way companies are testing the waters with AI rather than initiating a structural reset.
“It seems to us to be a kind of one-time exercise by many in small amounts,” she said, “but not what translates to getting full ROI from their AI investment.”
[This report has been updated to include Great Place to Work survey data.]
