Employees across industries are increasingly being asked to build, deploy, and normalize Artificial Intelligence systems that may reduce the need for their coworkers or even themselves. At Hype Lab, Matt Pressberg and his partner created an Artificial Intelligence agent called Maria to help draft pitches and monitor inboxes, only to be approached by a larger firm that wanted a similar tool with the explicit goal of displacing staff. What began as a productivity aid now looks, in Pressberg’s view, like a possible threat to other workers, reflecting a broader workplace anxiety over whether participating in Artificial Intelligence adoption amounts to helping management plan layoffs.
That pressure is intensifying as businesses move from experimentation to measurable returns. High-profile companies including Snap, Block, Meta, and Coinbase have tied layoffs to Artificial Intelligence-driven efficiency efforts, while investors increasingly expect immediate gains. Goldman Sachs economists say Artificial Intelligence is already a modest net drag on the labor market, and Morgan Stanley analysts estimate that firms adopting Artificial Intelligence have cut headcount by 4%, though that’s accompanied by an 11.5% gain in productivity. A recent Gallup poll found that 67% of executive leaders are frequent Artificial Intelligence users, compared to 46% of individual contributors. A 2025 survey from Columbia Business School found that 76% of executives reported that their employees were enthusiastic about Artificial Intelligence adoption at their organizations, but only 31% of individual contributors actually felt good about Artificial Intelligence.
For some founders and investors, the tradeoff is direct and intentional. James Buckley-Thorp, founder of construction insurance platform Atlian.ai, is building software to remove multiple human steps from producing insurance broker quotes for building projects. He argues that customers could obtain and compare quotes in a matter of days instead of weeks, while brokers and builders benefit from lower costs and faster timelines. The underlying logic is blunt: reducing labor is central to the business case, even if a large workforce is left exposed.
The unease is sharper for rank-and-file employees, who often lack visibility into management’s plans and may only realize later that their own Artificial Intelligence work contributed to layoffs. Organizational experts argue that clearer communication can reduce some of that moral strain, especially when workers understand why changes are being made and what outcomes are realistic. Research from the Stanford Social Media Lab and BetterUp found that 40% of American deskworkers believe they’ve received “workslop” from a colleague, suggesting that pressure to use Artificial Intelligence can produce lower-quality work and erode trust among teams.
Beyond immediate job cuts, workers and consultants warn about a longer-term structural risk. Many tasks now being automated were once the entry-level assignments that trained future managers and specialists. Pressberg argues that if companies automate away those early responsibilities, they may also eliminate the practical learning that produces stronger judgment later on. Artificial Intelligence may help companies operate leaner today, but it could also leave organizations with a hollowed-out talent pipeline tomorrow.
