AI is already disrupting tech jobs
First, they overhired during the pandemic, leading to an unprecedented wave of layoffs in the tech market that began in late 2022. Three years later, tech companies are cutting jobs again, now citing team adjustments due to AI (artificial intelligence).
"I need fewer heads," summarized Marc Benioff, CEO of the American technology company Salesforce, which develops management software . In an interview with The Logan Bartlett Show podcast , published in late August, the executive presented rounded reduction figures due to the impact of AI. "I was able to rebalance the total headcount in customer support," he explained. "It was a reduction from 9,000 to 5,000 people, simply because I need fewer heads."
"If we were having this conversation a year ago and you called Salesforce, there would be 9,000 people globally capable of interacting over the cloud service, managing, creating, reading, updating, and deleting data." These interactions are handled differently today, Benioff explained: "50% with [AI] agents, 50% with humans."
Customer service isn't the only thing being automated at Salesforce. In a conference call with analysts following the quarterly earnings call, Marc Benioff detailed that AI was also transforming sales. "Of the people who contacted Salesforce over the last 26 years, between 20 and 100 million didn't get a call back—simply because we didn't have enough people. Now, with our sales agents, everyone is getting a call. It's a huge change ," said the CEO.
It was a significant shift in tone from statements made a few months earlier. Benioff told Fortune in July that he didn't expect AI to lead to mass unemployment and dismissed the "scary narratives" of some executives. "(...) I talk to CEOs and ask what AI are they using for these massive layoffs? I think AI improves people, but I don't think it will necessarily replace them," he declared. However, at the time, Benioff already acknowledged that he was "constantly moving people around and changing the company."
Salesforce is far from alone in announcing cuts. Microsoft, which is expected to invest $80 billion in AI this year alone , confirmed it will eliminate 9,000 jobs, equivalent to 4% of its 228,000 employees. "We continue to implement the necessary changes to best position the company for success in a dynamic market," a company spokesperson stated. Previously, in January, it had already confirmed it would lay off 6,000 employees . Simultaneously with the cuts announcement, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed in April that AI already accounts for "up to 30% of Microsoft's code."
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Crowdstrike, which gained media attention for an incident that rendered millions of PCs unusable in the summer of 2024 , is also cleaning up its act because of AI. In May of this year, the cybersecurity technology company announced it would eliminate 5% of its jobs, equivalent to 500 jobs . "We are realigning parts of our business to continue scaling with focus and discipline," CEO George Kurtz said in a market statement. "We operate in a market and technology inflection point, with AI disrupting every industry, accelerating threats, and evolving customer needs," he explained. " Investments in AI are accelerating the company's execution and efficiency."
"AI has always been fundamental to how we operate. It shortens our hiring curve and helps us go from idea to product faster," explained Kurtz. "It speeds time to market, improves customer outcomes, and drives efficiencies in both the front and back offices [the areas with direct, visible customer contact and the internal area, respectively]. AI is a force multiplier in the business."
These examples also include technology companies like Oracle, which is making cuts in the US, and Autodesk, which in January announced the layoff of 1,350 employees, equivalent to 9% of the design software company's workforce. Once again, a reorganization to "accelerate investments in AI, platforms, and the cloud " was cited as justification.
"These cases clearly illustrate how the adoption of artificial intelligence is transforming the structure of technology companies," Paulo Rosa, senior economist at Banco Carregosa, told Observador. This adoption is leading to a reduction in "certain roles, especially in support, customer service, and data processing, while also putting pressure on the reskilling of workers for roles more closely linked to the development and management of these new tools."
The impact of AI on the job market is a frequent topic in discussions about AI. But when the warnings come from company executives at the forefront of AI development, the market pays a different kind of attention. Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of Anthropic, has stated in interviews that this technology could lead to the elimination of many jobs. Amodei, who was vice president of research at OpenAI, gave an interview to Axios in which he emphasized that companies must stop "sugarcoating" what's coming. He predicted that AI could "eliminate jobs en masse in fields like technology, finance, law, consulting, and other white-collar professions, especially in entry-level roles."
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, however, added some pressure. When asked by CNN International about Amodei's statements, he responded that "if the world runs out of ideas, then productivity gains will translate into job losses." "The fundamental question is, do we have more ideas in society? And if we do, we'll be more productive, we'll be able to grow."
"There's no doubt that AI is a driver of organizational leverage," Pedro Nunes, senior manager at Michael Page, told Observador. "However, within companies themselves, differing views on its impact coexist." While "many top executives believe that investment in AI will translate into productivity gains and, consequently, reductions in personnel costs," some workers view AI as "a support that increases individual productivity and frees up time for more complex tasks, enabling greater specialization."
Pedro Nunes has already identified the possible "reduction of non-specialized roles." "Professions based primarily on the assimilation and processing of information, without a strong creative or generative component , are particularly exposed to the risk of replacement in the short term," he acknowledges. "Roles such as price analyst, focused solely on variable analysis, may be at risk."
In fact, this is an assessment that has long been made in labor market studies. "I've been working in technology for over ten years, and this issue of AI [replacing jobs] isn't new," João Salvador Oliveira, head of digital talent solutions at Randstad Portugal, told Observador. "I think the extent to which this topic is being discussed and how it's being implemented in the market, not only internationally but also in the Portuguese market, is new."
But he dismisses catastrophic scenarios. "In technology, AI will indeed replace some roles, but it will create many others. Between the two, technology will come out on top in the sense that more jobs will be created."
"What companies are immediately announcing is an optimization through the use of AI, which means fewer people are needed for the same task," says João Salvador Oliveira. "However, what will happen is that these same companies will hire people with skills that previously didn't exist or with experience and knowledge in AI."
The director of technology talent at Randstad Portugal gives some examples of professions that are expected to see increased demand. "Anything related to data scientists, data analysts linked to AI, cybersecurity, prompt engineering—in other words, engineers who know how to effectively connect ChatGPT or Gemini to user needs."
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