What leaders are saying, ready to use

I could easily see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period.

Probably in 2025, we at Meta, as well as the other companies that are basically working on this, are going to have an AI that can effectively be a sort of midlevel engineer that you have at your company that can write code.

I am of the opinion that AI can already do all of the jobs that we, as humans, do. It's just a question about how we apply it and use it.

Can we do an HR chatbot so you don't need to know the intricacies of your HR system? How do you promote people, how do you move people, how do you verify employment? Can all these things be done using AI? And we had a great proof point that that is true.

Before asking for more Headcount and resources, teams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI. What would this area look like if autonomous AI agents were already part of the team? This question can lead to really fun discussions and projects.

Duolingo will gradually stop using contractors to do work that AI can handle.

As cost unfortunately seems to have been a too predominant evaluation factor when organizing this, what you end up having is lower quality.

We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs. It's hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.

This is the enigma of success in an industry that has no franchise value.

AI is changing the world, and we must adapt by ensuring our product delivers truly great experiences. Delivering on this ambition requires us to move faster, try new things, and fix what's broken.

I've reduced it from 9,000 heads to about 5,000, because I need less heads.

Our primary focus is on upskilling, given the competencies we require. With our extensive experience in this area, we aim to transition individuals who do not have a viable path for skilling, allowing us to acquire the necessary skills.

AI is doing some work, but it's important for us to think about redirecting employees to where the growth is in your organization. [AI-driven job loss] is a major fear, whether people admit it or not, in most organizations that is going to get in the way of AI adoption.

As we evaluate what has been done and what can be done, we believe we don’t need as many people to operate the existing business.

2026 will be the year that AI starts to dramatically change the way that we work.

We are not graded on effort. We are judged on our results. And I expect to see the last vestiges of old, bad habits fall away, and a more disciplined, more confident, winning Citi fully emerge in 2026. Over time, we can expect automation, AI and further process simplification to reshape how work gets done, some roles will change, new ones will emerge and others will no longer be required.

I just want to make sure that we're clear that it's not all AI. So there are also going to be some fundamental changes. We're going to look at all of our integrated work processes from end to end and simplify those.

If we don't continue to invest in entry-level hires, what happens in three to five years? There's no pipeline, the well simply dries up.

Software development has experienced its most significant shift in decades. I am prepared to say this clearly: the era of manually writing code as the core act of engineering is over.

I don't think we're early to this realization. I think most companies are late. Within the next year, I believe the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes.

Our approach is not 'AI replaces people'. But it would be disingenuous to pretend AI doesn't change the mix of skills we need or the number of roles required in certain areas. It does.

The people that automate their jobs with AI will always have a job.

Most savings from this change will flow directly back into the people who stay. We'll be introducing million-dollar salary bands.

We are confident this transition to AI-first ways of working will allow us to move faster and with fewer people.

We are becoming a technology company again.

The vast majority of those we laid off last week were measurers.

The adoption and deployment of AI technologies across our operations have resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce.

AI is the dominant force as companies are restructuring around it, automating roles, and reallocating budgets toward new capabilities. The sector is being reshaped in real time.

We will exclusively focus new hiring on selected profiles only, mainly core AI roles, that are critical for our long-term success.

We've embedded AI across software development, customer support, and our internal systems, and the result is a company that can design, build, and ship with a substantially leaner organization.

AI is changing the way we work and how we deliver services to our customers. We are already seeing considerable gains, and are therefore adapting our organisation to a new reality.

These actions involve an expected reduction of circa 5,000 full-time employees. Around 60% of the Group actions relate to support functions, including fewer developers as AI makes our people more productive.

And we will employ AI at scale: but AI is the icing on the cake, not the cake.