The fear is real. In meetings, Slack talks and post-work drinks, one question is quietly eating away at millions of employees: Will Ai take my job?
In public, CEOs like to sound soothing. They say that generative AI will “improve productivity” or “will simplify operations.” But when you actually read what they say to their own employees, or what slips into investing memories, the message is cool: virtual workers are here, and they are not just helpers. They are replacements.
Let’s look at in more detail what some of the world’s most powerful technology officials say. Not in Hype videos, but in official interior messages, blog posts and investment updates.
1. Amazon Andy Jassy: “We’ll need fewer people”
Andy Jassy, Director General of Amazon issued A company-wide message that sounds acceptable until you actually read it.
“As we come up with more generative AI and agents, it has to change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some work that are done today … We expect this to reduce our entire corporate workforce while we will gain efficiency from using AI widely through the company.”
The key phrase? “Next years.” This is a corporate speech from 2026 to 2028. Not ten years away. This is soon.
Jassy is not talking about automating just simple or repetitive tasks. He prepares employees for reality, where AI replaces entire work categories across the board, and where employment slows or stops overall for roles that machines can now make.
2.
In self Posted Al Linkedin, Duolingo’s general manager, Luis von Ahn, was even more blunt. “Most features will have specific initiatives to fundamentally change how they work … Headcount will only be given if a team cannot automate more of their work.”
Translation: It will no longer hire unless your work is impossible for AI. The company is betting that most teams will soon need fewer people.
3.. Shopify’s Tobi Lütke: Why can’t it do it?
Tobi Lütke, General Director of Shopify, shared a similar directive on X: “Before asking for more main card and resources, teams have to prove why they can’t get what they want to do with AI … What would this area look like if autonomous AI -agents were already part of the team?” Lütke openly asks managers to reimagini teams as if AI agents are already integrating, and justify why some people are still needed.
– big lutke (@tobi) 7 April 2025
The message of these Directors is clear: human employees are now the last resort. The new default is automation.
Salesforce General Director Marc Benioff recently stated that AI is already doing 50% of the work in his company, shortly before announcing another 1,000 jobs. Klarna’s Director General, the main company Fintech, was even more blunt, revealing that AI had already allowed the company to reduce its workforce by 40%.
The reality: virtual workers already exist
These are not future scenes. This is already happening.
The reason for this sudden move is the rapid development of AI technology. As the General Director of Openai, Sam Altman, explained in a recent podcast, the latest “reasoning models” made a critical jump. In simple terms, these AI systems can now do more than simply find information; They can “think” with complex, multi -step problems. Altman suggested that these models can reason with someone who has a doctorate, which means that they are now capable of performing the high -level analytical tasks ever reserved for highly educated people.
This ability is actively utilized. Three sources working at Major Ai Labs told Gizmodo that they are training powerful models to perform real world tasks in almost every “knowledge work” profession, including banking, financial analysis, insurance, law and even journalism. These sources that have requested anonymity, as their contracts prohibit them from speaking publicly, described how their work is used side -by -side comparisons with AI models to refine technology until it can produce a professional degree with minimal errors. Virtual employees already do our jobs; The current phase is simply the fact that they will perfect them more.
The “next years” Jassy talked about perhaps closer to two years at most.
Dismissals accelerate
Consider the recent dismissal trends of the TE industry industry. In 2024, 551 technology companies fired nearly 152,922 employees, according to data from Dismissal.fyi. The rhythm has accelerated dramatically this year. In just the first six months of 2025, 151 ie companiesnological companies have already sold over 63,823 people. On average Te Companynica company cut 277 workers in 2024. If this rate is maintained for the rest of the year, the average number of layoffs per Te Companynika company in 2025 would increase to 851, approximately three times the average of 2024.
Although there is no direct evidence linking all these layoffs to AI, the trend occurs during a period of record economic strength. The NASDAQ has just closed at always high, and eight of the world’s ten largest companies are in the Te Sectornic sector. Profit, growing companies discard workers with alarming speed, and the quiet implementation of AI is the most logical explanation.
Our take
Tech Ceos won’t tell you directly that you are replaced. But the memoirs speak for themselves.
AI is already here, and your company is likely to build a road page to automate you from your role. One internal pilot project at a time. One chat at a time. One hiring frost at a time. If you want to understand what is following the US workforce, do not listen to the marketing. Read the footnotes on the Director General’s blog. Because they already tell you the truth.
