Thousands of IBM employees will lose their jobs to AI
IBM Chief Executive Officer Arvind Krishna said the company will pause hiring for roles it thinks can be replaced by AI in the coming years. Krishna stated in an interview that hiring in back office functions such as human resources will be suspended or slowed down. Krishna said that these non-customer-facing roles included approximately 26,000 employees: “I can easily see 30% of this being replaced by artificial intelligence and automation in a five-year period.”
IBM currently employs approximately 260,000 people and continues to recruit for software development and client-facing roles. A few months ago, the firm announced it would lay off as many as 5,000 employees, but in the first quarter about 7,000 were hired. The company aims to refine productivity by reducing human employment in business areas that can be automated with productive artificial intelligence. In addition, for several years, IBM has focused on the cloud and software space.