AI Noose Tightens On Jobs
Microsoft laid off 15,000 jobs, apart from 2,000 staff who were deemed underperformers, in 2025 alone
Artificial Intelligence is gradually spreading its presence across the tech sector. Several tech giants, including Microsoft and India-based Tata Consultancy Services, had claimed of investing heavily in AI. Citing their unprecedented investment in AI and the need to adapt in a dynamic industry, the firms had even announced massive layoffs.
Microsoft laid off 15,000 jobs, apart from 2,000 staff who were deemed underperformers, in 2025 alone. In a bid to explain the reasoning behind the job cuts, CEO Satya Nadella wrote: "By every objective measure, Microsoft is thriving-- our market performance, strategic positioning, and growth all point up and to the right."
A couple of days after Nadella addressed the job cuts in his company, India's largest IT services provider TCS announced that it would reduce its workforce by two per cent, which accounts to nearly 12,000 jobs, in the 2026 financial year. TCS CEO K. Krithivasan said that the shifts in technology and business operations were driving internal changes. He said that they have been calling out new technologies, particularly AI and operating model changes. "We have been deploying AI at scale and evaluating skills we will be requiring for the future."
Amidst the thrust on AI, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently warned against the 'trust' users are placing in the company's AI chatbot ChatGPT. He said it is interesting when people put high degree of trust in ChatGPT, because AI hallucinates. Noting that AI is infallible and can produce misleading or false content, he said it should be the tech that you don't trust that much. AI has notable limitations that need to be addressed with honesty and transparency, Altman acknowledged.
Corroborating with the OpenAI CEO's concern, there were reports of Sarah Skidd, a product marketing manager based in Arizona, who said that she was recently paid $100 an hour by a content agency to fix AI-generated content. It took nearly 20 hours for her to rewrite the entire copy for a hospitality client. By taking up the assignment, Skidd earned over Rs 1.7 lakh in 20 hours.
In the wake of the above, one is perplexed over the developments in the tech sector. Is AI going to stay for a long time as reputed firms have invested heavily in it? Will more and more techies be rendered jobless? Or will it create more jobs as human brains will have to fix the issues generated by AI? The answers to these questions will get revealed slowly but steadily as time passes by.