#customer-service · How AI Is Reshaping Work

Amazon confirmed on October 7 that it cut roles in its Stores business, fewer than 1,000 according to Business Insider and Reuters. Amazon's statement names no number and no AI, and no Washington layoff notice had been filed when GeekWire reported.

At its AI Investor Day on October 5, Deutsche Telekom said AI and automation should cut about €2.5B of indirect costs by 2030 against 2023, with roughly €1.1B of gross savings outside the U.S. due in 2027. The release names no job numbers.

On October 1, Microsoft AI released a streaming transcriber at $0.54 per audio hour and two text-to-speech models at $22 and $15 per million characters. The prices are public. The customers and the call-completion numbers are not.

Google shipped Gemini 3.8 Live and Extended Thinking on September 15, with Extended Thinking taking first place on Artificial Analysis' speech-to-speech index at 82.6. At the published per-minute rates, an hour of two-way audio runs about $1.38.

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.