U.S. companies cited AI as the reason for 55,000 job cuts last year. So I looked at who actually has AI tool access at work. One study concluded: 80% of C-suite leaders. 32% of non-managers. That gap should bother you. Among those 55,000 folks who lost their jobs, how many had the same AI access as the leaders making the decisions? How many had the opportunity to show how they can use AI to grow the business? Before your organization makes its next major workforce decision—whether upsizing, downsizing, or something else—start with one question: Does every person on your team have the same access to AI tools as your executive team? If the answer is no, start there.
Democratizing access to AI tools - and providing the training and space for learning - is so critical right now. I'm surprised to see the % of non-managers being so low, because from what I've seen, even when non-managers do have access, they rarely have the guidance or space to experiment that will allow them to even adopt the AI tools successfully
AI tools are designed to augment human workflows and processes. Full stop. If you're not using AI to grow your business and instead, are using it to replace dollars within it, you are sadly misguided and leading your business into the ground rather than the sky.
it looks like layoffs are happening in anticipation. Someone told me it is the tariffs and technology that are creating super uncertainty. Do you see that happening?
Layoffs often happen faster than enablement. What the executives with full access to AI did not get is that AI must be deployed as a growth lever before it is used as a cost narrative.
I’m surprised by how low the number is.
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for continuing to be a champion for democratizing AI tooling adoption! 🧡 Maximizing impact starts at the ground level up AND at the top level down!
Brandon, this is less about AI and more about asymmetry. When leaders get augmentation, and teams don’t, outcomes start to look predetermined
The 80% vs 32% gap isn't an AI adoption problem. It's a management failure
That access gap is the part most orgs are not willing to say out loud. If AI is becoming a leverage layer, unequal access becomes unequal opportunity to perform, and then layoffs start looking less like “performance based” and more like “capability allocation.” A simple fairness test: do frontline teams have sanctioned tools, clear guardrails, and time to learn, before leadership judges outcomes?
Also, it's never just one thing! AI might be a contributing factor, but data shows most companies aren't using it to the extent it could truly impact jobs. Reality is, most companies are focused on cost-cutting (aka hiring fewer FTE), and the belief that AI could replace tasks done by the missing folks. I would be curious how many entire workflows are truly replaced by AI at the majority of companies (Zapier is WAY ahead on this).