AI washing :)

Peter Bell is the founder of Gather.dev, a professional network for chief technology officers, who uses AI agents in place of people for certain roles at his startup.

He has gone so far as giving these agents names and concocting personal back stories for them. He seeks advice from an artificial-intelligence life coach he calls Kira. You’d have a hard time finding a stronger believer in AI’s potential.

But even Bell contends that many business leaders today are exaggerating the technology’s role in layoffs, a practice that’s coming to be known as AI washing.

“It’s a wonderful way of looking like a genius when job cuts are something you might have to do for other operational reasons,” he says. “It’s great smoke cover if you just need to goose your bottom line.”

He isn’t alone in such a skeptical take.

Leaders at Amazon.com, Block, Atlassian and other companies have linked recent layoffs to AI. But economists and machine-learning specialists say existing technology isn’t ready to take humans’ jobs at scale.

They argue the most likely reasons for head-count reductions remain the same as ever: slower sales, shifting priorities and previous overhiring.

“AI washing is pervasive right now,” says J.P. Gownder, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research. “It sounds so much better to say, ‘We’re laying people off because we’re so good at AI and we’re creating all these efficiencies.’ That sounds so much more rational and innovative.”

U.S. employers laid off more than 1.2 million workers in 2025, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a firm that advises companies on staff reductions and helps departing employees find new work. Forrester estimates that fewer than 100,000 of those job losses were primarily attributable to AI productivity gains or cost savings.

Citing AI when downsizing can make a company seem ahead of the curve and boost its stock value. Investors like the idea of a business using technology to run leaner.

Gownder says he speaks regularly with managers who tell him that AI tools need more time to prove their capabilities. Often, there are cybersecurity and regulatory compliance hurdles to clear before a bot can take over a person’s tasks.

Forrester projects 6.1% of Americans’ jobs could be lost to AI by 2030, as these issues are resolved. That’s “bad but not an apocalypse,” as Gownder puts it. And a modest displacement tomorrow is different from widespread replacement today.

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/are-bots-replacing-workers-these-skeptics-arent-so-sure-755143b1?mod=hp_lista_pos2