This past week, Meta laid off 8,000 employees as part of a sweeping restructuring toward AI — cutting roles in some areas while simultaneously moving 7,000 workers into new AI-focused positions. ClickUp, a Work Management platform, laid off 22% of its staff, also citing AI, but in a slightly different way. In short, these companies are doing the same thing (reducing staff) while pointing to AI as the catalyst. It’s easy to see why Knowledge Workers are becoming increasingly anxious. And while we have no desire to fan the flames, the news headlines are doing that for us. So what do you do?

First, we all need to have a healthy dose of skepticism around job security. Again, I don’t want to create any fear — but I do think we, as humans, can’t be naive here. The 40-year-old job with a pension is long gone. If you can’t show your value, you need to find a way, or you may get caught in a sweeping layoff. And strangely, the answer to finding that way is with AI.

What’s interesting about ClickUp’s layoffs is that while the CEO laid off 22% of his staff, he also introduced $1M US salary bands for those who prove 100x impact with AI agents. Now, one eyebrow should be firmly planted on your forehead for this one. If Zeb Evans has the money to pay at that level, why let go of people who could potentially unlock even more impact? There’s a good measure of calling BS on this — but the story is more nuanced than it first appears. Evans isn’t just offering a retention bonus; he’s making a structural bet that the nature of the work itself has fundamentally changed. ClickUp now runs roughly 3,000 internal AI agents across its departments — a 3:1 ratio of agents to employees. His argument is that he doesn’t need more people doing the old work; he needs fewer people doing entirely different work. Whether that holds up is another question. The proof will be in ClickUp’s product velocity and whether their best people stick around. Only time will tell.

However, what’s really interesting about all of this is that many CEOs, while pointing to AI as the reason to reduce headcount, also openly admit they don’t know how to generate real value — or revenue — with it. And the data backs this up. According to IBM’s CEO study, only 25% of AI initiatives have delivered expected ROI, and just 16% have scaled enterprise-wide. A PwC survey of more than 4,400 CEOs across 95 countries found that 56% report seeing neither higher revenues nor lower costs from their AI investments. More than half. These CEOs know they need to leverage AI to stay competitive, but the path to meaningful returns remains unclear for most. That uncertainty, paradoxically, is actually a window of opportunity for the knowledge worker who figures it out before their CEO does. That person becomes very hard to let go of.

So, here’s what you can do. Pick up the book Artificial Organizations and follow the path laid out in Chapter 3, which offers a practical framework for using AI as a genuine work partner rather than just a productivity shortcut. Use AI to help you produce a better product for you and your company. There is no guarantee that you’ll be safe when the next CEO pulls a Benioff. But if you can produce a better product, a better experience, and lead the way on your team in integrating AI into proving value at your company, then you are not on the expense side of the equation — you’re on the value side. And that’s where you want to be.

References and Resources

Meta slashes 8,000 jobs as it pivots towards AI; type: Article

ClickUp cuts 22% workforce as CEO Zeb Evans pushes AI-first strategy; type: Article

Salesforce’s CEO Called AI Layoff Blame a “Lazy Way Out” (And His Own Numbers Tell a Complicated Story); type: Article

IBM CEO Study: Only 25% of AI initiatives deliver expected ROI; type: Article/Research

PwC 29th Global CEO Survey: 56% see no revenue gains or cost reductions from AI; type: Article/Research