#customer-service · How AI Is Reshaping Work

AI agents are absorbing routine support work and the headcount is following: Uber cut about 10% of customer service, Microsoft's support org shrank by 10,000, and outsourcing hubs are next.

Lastminute.com is cutting about a quarter of its workforce to reinvent itself as an AI-powered travel company, funding the AI with the salaries it removes.

Turns out the chatbot you replaced your support team with could not, in fact, handle an angry customer. 55% of executives now regret their AI layoffs, and a third spent more rehiring than they ever saved.

Jack Dorsey's Block went from 10,000 employees to under 6,000 — the largest single AI-attributed layoff in corporate history. CEO said the quiet part out loud: it isn't financial trouble, the bots just got good.

78,557 tech workers laid off in Q1. 37,638 of them — 47.9% — were sent home specifically because their employer said AI could do the job. That's the official cover story, anyway.