Don't blame the model for your layoffs

Another week, another CEO post explaining that AI is the reason a few hundred people no longer have jobs. “AI made us more efficient.” “We're reshaping the org around AI.” “These roles are being automated.” The framing is dishonest, it's disrespectful, and it tells me the leader doesn't really understand the tool they're hiding behind.

AI didn't fire anyone. You did.

Every one of these announcements uses the same grammar trick. AI becomes the subject of the sentence. “AI is replacing roles.” “AI allowed us to reduce headcount.” A model didn't walk into a room and set a P&L target. A person did. Naming the model instead of the decision turns a hard call into something that sounds inevitable.

The honest version is two sentences. We over-hired between 2021 and 2023. We're correcting, and we're investing in tools so the people who stay can do more. That's a leadership statement. The AI version is a press release.

It's disrespectful to the people leaving

“Your role was automated” tells someone their seven years of judgment, relationships and context were a script a model could run. They weren't. The company chose to stop paying for that work. Those are different sentences, and they land differently on a resume, on LinkedIn, and at the kitchen table that night.

It's worse for the people who stay

The cost most leaders miss is what happens to everyone left. They start spending part of every week quietly auditing themselves. Is my function next? Should I be using the new tools more visibly? Is this tool a timer on my job? None of that shows up on a spreadsheet, and all of it shows up in the work.

Shipping good AI products needs exactly the conditions this destroys. People willing to experiment, to say where the model is bad, to tell you honestly what should stay manual. A scared team doesn't do any of that. It hides.

What good leaders do instead

Own the decision in plain language. Something like: “We're reducing headcount because revenue per employee is below where it needs to be. AI is part of how we plan to grow productivity from here. It isn't the reason for this cut.”

Keep the two conversations apart. A layoff is a business call. Adopting AI is a capability call. Mix them and the whole company learns that the new tool is a threat, not something that helps them.

Then invest in the people who stay. Real time, real training, and real permission to try the tools and report back honestly on what works. That's how you actually get the productivity gain you announced.

Why this matters for product work

I run a B2B portfolio. Most of what my teams ship over the next two years will have AI somewhere in it. None of it gets better because the team is afraid. It gets better when people trust the company enough to push the model into uncomfortable places, find where it breaks, and tell me. Morale isn't a soft variable here. It decides whether you hear the truth about your product.

If you're about to publish one of these posts, take AI out of the sentence. If the decision still holds up with the model gone from the subject line, send it. If it doesn't, you have a different problem than the one you're announcing.