AI makes me wanna fire people (just not who you think)
Is replacing entire teams with AI a good idea?
Hi! I’m Peter, CEO of Kickresume, and these career-related stories caught my attention this month — and might catch yours too.
Today’s story: Is replacing entire teams with AI a good idea?
Handpicked remote job paying in $$$: Manager, Figma for Education - International at Figma ($180k—$260k per year)
Random piece of career advice that actually works: Motivation letter vs. cover letter
I should replace 20% of my employees with AI.
Just imagine how much money it would save, how drastically productivity would increase, and how much time I’d free up by not having to deal with HR stuff.
No more salary negotiations, no raises, no office expansion headaches. Just pure, machine-driven efficiency.
Sounds great, right?
Actually, no. It sounds insane.
And yet, this is exactly how so many CEOs are thinking right now.
Who needs people anyway?
If you think I’m exaggerating, let’s take a look at the companies that are already replacing people with AI.
Klarna, a Swedish fintech company, introduced an AI assistant “capable of performing tasks equivalent to 700 full-time employees” (the CEO’s words, not mine), stopping new hires and gradually reducing staff as people left.
Klarna already went from 5,000 to 3,800 employees in 2023. And now they want to go even further—and fire 1,800 more people by using AI in marketing and customer service
Meanwhile, as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) continues its purge of the federal workforce, over 1,000 employees at the General Services Administration (GSA) were let go—just in February.
But worry not! To fill the gap, DOGE has deployed a proprietary chatbot called GSAi to 1,500 federal workers at the GSA to automate tasks… previously done by humans.
When GSA employees asked what they can use GSAi for, they were told “the options are endless.” A list of tasks in an internal memo then, frankly, ended very quickly: “You can: draft emails, create talking points, summarize text, write code.”
But hey, at least there’s a chatbot. 🙃
It’s not just corporations and governments. Even nonprofits are doing it.
National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA), the largest organization of its kind in the U.S, replaced its entire human-staffed helpline—six full-time employees and over 200 volunteers—with an AI chatbot named Tessa.
Now, I understand that to the higher-ups and CEOs, replacing humans with AI might sound great in theory.
But theory and reality don’t always match.
There was a lot of “I apologize for the confusion”
Remember DOGE’s GSAi? Well, the initial memo about GSAi also included a warning:
“Do not type or paste federal nonpublic information (such as work products, emails, photos, videos, audio, and conversations that are meant to be pre-decisional or internal to GSA) as well as personally identifiable information as inputs.”
Another memo instructs people not to enter “controlled unclassified information”.
That’s an understandable disclaimer. Though somewhat limiting and vague. Especially if an employee wants to use the chatbot to, say, summarize meeting notes or help structure some data. (Something it was meant to help with in the first place?)
Fittingly, a GSA employee told Wired the chatbot is “about as good as an intern,” and it produces “Generic and guessable answers.”
Meanwhile, over at the NEDA, things went from questionable to actively harmful.
Tessa, the AI chatbot that replaced an entire human-staffed helpline, was supposed to provide safe, responsible support for people struggling with eating disorders.
Instead, it started recommending weight-loss strategies.
Yep. The AI designed to help people with eating disorders, recommended things like daily weigh-ins, counting calories, and measuring body fat.
Screenshots of Tessa’s disastrous advice spread quickly, and after immediate backlash, NEDA shut the chatbot down completely.
So now, they have no helpline and no AI. Efficient!
Then there’s New York City’s MyCity chatbot, an AI designed to help local businesses navigate legal regulations. The only problem?
It told business owners they could:
Take a cut of their workers’ tips (illegal).
Fire employees for complaining about sexual harassment (also illegal).
Serve cheese nibbled on by a rodent (disgusting and illegal).
Unlike Tessa, MyCity is apparently still up and running, now with a disclaimer that its answers are not legal advice and that it may “occasionally produce incorrect, harmful, or biased” responses.
And yet, some companies are still convinced that AI can seamlessly replace human workers.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not some AI doom-monger. At this point, it’s inevitable that companies will adopt some form of AI to stay competitive.
But maybe—just maybe—there’s a smarter way to do this without being a jerk about it.
Maybe don’t fire everyone just yet ?
When you think about it, replacing employees with AI is incredibly unimaginative.
I mean, they have this marvel of technology and the best they could come up with is firing a bunch of people? The exact same people who know the quirks and hidden skeletons of their organization—which is exactly the kind of knowledge AI doesn’t have.
But what if you combined the two? Wouldn’t that mean growth? A win-win situation for everybody?
Some companies have already figured this out.
Take IKEA. When the company introduced a customer-service chatbot in 2021, it didn’t lead to layoffs.
Instead, IKEA retrained 8,500 customer-service workers to focus on handling complex customer issues and offering design advice—the kind of work that requires human insight.
AI took care of routine inquiries, freeing up employees for tasks that added more value.
Or Alorica, a global customer-service provider. Instead of using AI to cut costs by replacing employees, the company introduced an AI-powered translation tool that enables workers to assist customers in over 200 languages and 75 dialects.
Rather than reducing staff, Alorica, in fact, continues to expand its workforce.
And actually, at Kickresume, we’ve taken a similar approach. Since AI became a thing a few years ago, instead of seeing AI as an excuse to fire people, we… well, hired more. We even built an AI team.
Turns out, using AI to enhance work instead of eliminating jobs is also an option.
What if we just thought this through?
Maybe it’s worth holding off on the mass layoffs and dramatic cost-cutting experiments. It’s still a little too early for that.
Thanks to AI, companies can do more with the people they already have.
And for everyone else? Your best bet is to keep learning—about AI, the tools, and how to work with them. Because like it or not, AI isn’t going anywhere.
Meanwhile, at Kickresume, we won’t be replacing anyone with AI.
After all, as Klarna’s CEO once said (before deleting the tweet),
“In a world of AI, nothing will be as valuable as humans!”
How ironic.
Handpicked remote job of the month
Manager, Figma for Education - International at Figma
💰$180k-$260k annual US base range 💰
Random piece of career advice
If you’ve ever found yourself scratching your head and wondering about the difference between a motivation letter vs. cover letter, you’re not alone.
These two documents, while similar, have distinct uses and contexts that set them apart.
Let’s sum it up:
Cover letter: A formal, one-page document aimed at employers and HR managers. Focuses on your skills and job-related experience. Professional in tone and tailored to a specific job and company. Usually accompanied by a resume or portfolio.
Motivation letter: A more personal, one-to-two page document aimed at academic institutions, NGOs, or employers. Focuses on your personal motivations, aspirations and experiences. Less formal in tone and tailored to a specific program or institution. May include academic transcripts or a CV.
Ready to see some examples belonging to real people?
Catch you later!
Peter