Is AI really coming for your job?

Hello,

This is Simon with the latest edition of The Weekly. In these updates, I share key AI related stories from this week's news, list upcoming events, and share any longer form articles posted on the website.

How worried are you about AI taking your job? If you have some concerns, that's totally understandable. It seems almost every week we read another story about a firm making a chunk of their employees redundant, with AI often cited as the reason. I'm sure there's some truth in that — but I also think it's a bit of an excuse. AI has brought previously unimaginable efficiencies and scale to parts of our work, and team leaders are keen to exploit it, often at the request of their CFO or CEO. No team wants to look like laggards.

But are we also signing off on our own fate? Maybe. Though it's worth keeping some perspective. AI was directly linked to around 4.5% of job losses in 2025, not an insignificant number, but a far cry from the existential threat the headlines imply.

I also believe AI is just a tool, and whilst it's very helpful, it cannot replace everything we do. For most of my career, I've worked in client-facing roles. Sure, a lot of the day-to-day business is conducted over email or a video call, but there are key moments where a face-to-face meeting can really move things along. And this is where humans are, for now, untouchable. There's no substitute for an in-person conversation — shaking hands with the senior decision maker, looking them in the eye. Taking them for lunch or drinks after the meeting is where deeper relationships are built. AI doesn't have the capability to do any of that.

But whilst I'm away from the office, AI could certainly help manage my inbox. And that's a point worth sitting with. This isn't an either/or conversation. If you're putting your head in the sand and ignoring AI altogether, you might well find yourself replaced fairly soon. But those of us engaging with it — working out where it can help, where its limits are, and where we need to step in — are the ones most likely to succeed in this new world.

What are your current thoughts? Are you exploring all the ways AI can help you, or are you going about your work trying to ignore that any of it is happening?

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In this section, I’m going to bring to you a real world example of AI use. This week we look at how shipping company Maersk used traditional AI to make huge savings.

WiseTech Global, the Australian logistics software giant, announced in February it would cut around 2,000 jobs over two years as part of an "AI transformation." The story escalated this month after founder Richard White told an investment conference that AI agents in WiseTech's CargoWise platform would let customers cut their own labour costs by half within two years — comments that staff say have poisoned morale, with employees describing being asked to help build the tools that may replace them. The fallout has reportedly included a security scare involving threats against the CEO's family.

Why it matters: This is a live case study in how not to communicate an AI-driven restructure. The technology decision may have been defensible, but the messaging turned it into a reputational and security crisis. Any leadership team planning AI-linked headcount changes should treat this as a template for what to avoid, particularly around staff who are expected to help automate their own roles.

President Trump signed an executive order on 2 June titled "Promoting Advanced Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Security," asking major AI developers to voluntarily submit their most advanced models for a 30-day government review period. It marks a shift from the largely hands-off US approach of the past few years, and arrives alongside a separate bipartisan push — the draft Great American AI Act, released 4 June — that would create the first comprehensive federal AI framework, covering frontier model governance, workforce impact, cybersecurity and international cooperation.

Why it matters: After years of US regulatory drift, Washington is starting to move on AI policy from two directions at once both executive action and a serious legislative draft. Businesses building compliance roadmaps around "the US won't regulate this" should revisit that assumption; a federal framework is now plausibly closer than the patchwork of state laws that's been the default reference point.

Tech sector layoffs have reached roughly 142,000 so far in 2026, with profitable companies such as Meta, Amazon and Oracle, cutting jobs to help fund a combined $700 billion in AI infrastructure spending, according to tracking reported by Tech Times and TechSpot. Around 50,000 of this year's job cuts have been explicitly linked to AI, roughly 17% of total announced cuts. A separate CBS News analysis notes the picture is more complicated than "AI did it" whilst over-hiring corrections are also a major factor.

Why it matters: The headline framing ("AI replaces workers") oversimplifies what's happening, but the money is real and the trend is accelerating. For leaders, the practical question isn't whether AI is "to blame," it's whether your organisation's AI investment case is being used (rightly or wrongly) to justify cuts your teams will notice and react to either way.

Thanks for reading, and see you next Thursday.

Simon,

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