AI layoffs: the leadership choice behind every headline

The dystopian playbook is everywhere

We all know the usual story these days about AI and the future of work: AI is coming for your job. CEOs are doubling down on control, surveillance, and efficiency at all costs.

The examples are everywhere.

• Meta deciding to track every keystroke, every mouse click, every action employees take on company computers.
• Block firing 40% of its staff, blaming it on AI while the actual reason seems to be previous overhiring.
• Oracle ditching 30,000 people through a 6am termination email with no warning whatsoever.

The stuff future historians won't look back at with pride.

Sadly, it has become the dominant narrative. The dystopian tech bro playbook. AI as a tool to make George Orwell's 1984 come to life.

Here's what bothers me about most "AI is taking jobs" headlines. They make it sound like AI is the bad guy. Like it just shows up one morning, points at people, and they get fired.

That's not what's happening.

Most leaders pick the second option because it's faster, easier, and allows them to hide behind the technology.

What IKEA did instead

Now meet IKEA.

The Swedish retailer faced the same situation every big company is facing. AI got good enough to handle a huge amount of its customer service work. In their case, 57% of customer conversations could be replaced by AI.

The dystopian playbook? Fire 8,500 people in a 5-minute Zoom call and call it a Tuesday.

IKEA didn't do that.

Instead, they looked closer at the work that was left. The remaining 43% of conversations were trickier. Customers wanted design help.

People asking how to fit a kitchen into an awkward corner. How to plan a kid's room. How to make a small apartment feel bigger.

So IKEA reskilled their customer service people into interior design consultants. Real humans, helping real customers, design real homes.

The result? A new service line generating an estimated 1 billion in revenue.

Yes, billion. With a B.

This wasn't charity. This wasn't some feel-good corporate social responsibility stunt. This was a cold, hard business decision that happened to treat people like humans.

They saw that AI could handle the repetitive stuff. Order tracking. Return processing. Basic product questions. But when customers needed creativity, empathy, and human judgment? That's where the magic happened.

Why most leaders choose the easy path

IKEA's leaders picked the harder path. And it took three things most companies don't want to invest in.

1. Belief that their people could grow beyond the job they were originally hired for.
2. Investment in actually training them.
3. Trust that putting people first pays off.

That's the real work. Most organizations decide to skip it.

Why? Because firing is simpler. You send an email. You blame market conditions. You blame AI. You move on.

Training takes time. It takes money. It takes faith that your customer service rep can become a design consultant. That your factory worker can become a technician. That your accountant can become an analyst.

Most leaders don't have that faith. Or they have it, but their quarterly earnings call is next week.

The spreadsheet mentality wins. Every time.

We've seen this movie before. During the pandemic, companies showed their true colors. Bird, the electric scooter company, invited 406 employees to a vague Zoom call titled "COVID-19 Update." When the call started at 10:30 a.m., employees were greeted with 5 minutes of silence and a slide saying "COVID-19."

Some thought they were experiencing technical difficulties and left the call. They couldn't get back in.

They missed what goes down as one of the coldest company announcements ever.

Suboptimal. That's the word they chose.

Oracle's recent AI layoffs followed the same playbook. 30,000 people. One email. Sent at 6 a.m. No warning. No explanation beyond "restructuring for AI efficiency."

Block pointed at AI when they cut 40% of their workforce. Later reporting suggested the real issue was overhiring during the boom years. But AI made a convenient villain.

The leaders who chose differently

IKEA isn't alone in choosing the human path, though they're increasingly rare.

These stories matter because they prove AI layoffs aren't inevitable. They're choices. Leadership choices.

Every leader can audit the work in their organization. What's repetitive? What requires human creativity? What happens if we invest in our people instead of discarding them?

The math isn't as simple as it looks on a spreadsheet. IKEA's 1 billion in new revenue didn't come from nowhere. It came from 8,500 people who knew the company had their back.

When companies face crises with solidarity instead of layoffs, something interesting happens. They don't just survive. They often come out stronger.

During previous economic downturns, progressive organizations chose furloughs over firings. They chose pay cuts for executives before job cuts for workers. They chose to see their people as assets to develop, not costs to minimize.

The choice that defines this decade

The next decade is going to be defined by these choices. Every leader, in every company, is going to face a moment where AI can replace a chunk of their workforce.

Some will join the dark side.

They'll track their people, train AI on their work, and let them go. The press will write articles about "AI taking jobs." The leaders will collect bonuses. Everyone will pretend it was inevitable.

Others will follow IKEA.

They'll see AI as a chance to free their people for work that matters more. They'll invest in growth, learning, and reskilling. They'll create new revenue streams instead of laying off the people who could have built them.

The question isn't whether AI can do the work. Of course it can. AI can handle customer service queries. It can process invoices. It can write basic reports.

The question is what leaders do with the people whose jobs get easier.

Do you fire them because their old job is gone? Or do you see what else they might become?

IKEA saw customer service reps who understood their products, their customers, their brand. They saw potential interior designers who just needed training.

Meta sees employees to surveil. Oracle sees costs to cut. Block sees convenient scapegoats for poor planning.

Different leaders. Different choices. Different futures.

I want more leaders to know there's a choice. And I want them to make the right one.

Want to be the leader who chooses the harder path?

IKEA didn't get to 1 billion in new revenue by accident. They had the belief, the structures, and the transformation playbook to reskill 8,500 people instead of firing them. Most leaders don't because they've never seen what the alternative actually looks like up close.

The Corporate Rebels Masterclass changes that. 6 weeks. 5 in-depth case studies of organizations that put people first and won. A brand-new final week on combining AI with self-management. And the practical frameworks to apply it inside your own company.

Join 489+ founders, transformation leads, and changemakers from 40+ countries who refuse to settle for the dystopian playbook.