As AI continues to weave its way into every corner of daily life, one of the public’s chief fears is what it will mean in the workplace.
They’re not irrational to worry. Many name-brand big tech companies have already sacked thousands of workers in favor of the technology, from Meta to Square — a trend that sets up a natural experiment: are these AI layoffs actually resulting in positive business outcomes?
That’s why a new study from Gartner immediately caught our eye. As Fortune reports, the research and advisory firm surveyed 350 global business executives whose companies are pulling in at least $1 billion annually to investigate whether all these AI layoffs are paying off in the real world.
The first takeaway is that the trend is real, with a total of 80 percent admitted to trimming their human staff to make investments in AI or autonomous technology. But they say they had no idea if AI would actually generate any benefits — they were simply buying into the promise of automation via AI.
That’s where things get interesting. The Gartner survey found that execs who slashed staff to invest in AI have seen the same financial gains as those who held onto their employees. In othe words, attempting to replace workers with AI isn’t showing any detectable returns for these companies. And to make matters worse, many of these businesses specifically reduced their headcount to free up the cash needed for AI technology, meaning they sacrificed valuable institutional knowledge and employee goodwill for nothing.
The findings aren’t entirely surprising. An MIT study last year found that AI is failing to generate meaningful revenue growth at the vast majority of companies that embrace it.
Still, not everyone believes that all investment in AI is destined to backfire. Gartner analyst Helen Poitevin told Fortune that these seemingly drastic moves by execs may simply be attempts to trial AI, not to structurally reset the whole company.
“It seems to us to be a kind of one-time exercise by many in small amounts, but not what translates to getting full ROI from their AI investment,” Poitevin told Fortune.
So which companies are seeing an actual bump from AI?
The Gartner survey found that companies leveraging AI as a form of “people amplification” — meaning they give their employees AI tools to boost efficiency, instead of replacing them outright — are seeing the most significant gains. Even that strategy is fraught, though: previous research has suggested that the majority of employees aren’t keen on using AI just yet, with one survey revealing 54 percent avoid using in-house AI tools altogether.
More on labor: Tech Workers Are in Deep, Deep Trouble
The post Large Study Finds That Replacing Workers With AI Is Backfiring Badly appeared first on Futurism.
