AI-related layoffs can be expected in a few short years, says Forrester expert Craig Le Clair.
You’ve probably already heard this, but to reiterate once more (and not for the last time), generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is one of the most important technological innovations in recent years.
The AI momentum, which is backed by billions in public and private funding, is driven by its biggest appeal – offering businesses a way to cut costs and improve work efficiency.
Over the past few years, the global tech sector has laid off employees in the tens of thousands. Notable instances include Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, BT, Workday, Indeed – the list goes on.
Many of these have been attributed to a strategic shift in focus toward AI and automation, but Forrester VP and principal analyst Craig Le Clair says that the real AI-led layoffs aren’t here yet.
Speaking to SiliconRepublic.com, Le Clair connects recent mass tech layoffs to macroeconomic conditions and growing economic uncertainty.
“There’s general economic headwinds where companies are being conservative – they’re expecting bad things to happen,” he says. “And usually when bad things are expected to happen, [companies]…create behaviour that makes them happen.”
However, AI-led layoffs are not far off, he explains. Current Forrester estimates suggest that AI ‘worker agents’, which – basically put – have a “job description for an AI agent”, can be expected around 2027. These agents, which can perform multi-step tasks much like a digital human employee, would begin “replacing [human] bodies”, Le Clair says.
While more advanced systems, such as ‘executive agents’ can be expected to become mainstream around 2028, followed by ‘artificial general intelligence’ from 2029, the estimates further suggest.
But it’s not until then that we would see more consistent layoffs from mature and traditional companies. “[We] haven’t gotten to the real agentic type capabilities,” he says.
Currently, much of enterprise-level AI adoption is still around standalone large language models and retrieval augmented generation. While most of the adoption next year will be around ‘solver agents’, which automate a specific workflow in a company, he explains. “So you’re not really getting rid of the person yet.”
Although that hasn’t stopped business leaders from ringing the alarm bells. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy recently said that the company would reduce its total workforce over time as AI tech develops. While OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned that entire job categories would be lost due to AI.
It is clear what leading AI providers are aiming for – human workers. Le Clair says that the tech industry is “out of control” when it comes to the speed with which it implements AI. “It’s a frantic development and innovation environment that we’re in.
“And basically the implications [of the impact on jobs] are not well thought through or known,” he adds.
So, what’s next?
A World Economic Forum report from the start of 2025 found that 40pc of employers expect to reduce their workforce where AI can automate tasks. Though, as Le Clair suggests, the level of automation that would lead to direct job cuts is not here – just yet.
On the other hand, a PwC report suggests that jobs exposed to AI grew by 40pc, while AI-skilled workers saw a wage premium of 56pc on average in 2024.
There’s a debate between which kinds of roles AI would affect the most. Many argue that early-career roles are up for the chop because they are considered to be the simplest and therefore the easiest to automate. And recently, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said that the technology could cut half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and spike unemployment to up to 20pc in the US.
In any case, upskilling in AI is seemingly the only way forward. According to Forrester research, new-age AI-based roles could involve ‘knowledge curation’, roles that collect, validate and maintain the quality of data fed to AI agents, and ‘change management’ roles that guide AI agent adoption and reduce resistance, helping with organisational integration.
In addition, ‘critical thinking’ roles would require workers to access agent outputs to spot biases and areas for improvement, ‘interaction skill’ workers would create the best-possible prompts to collaborate with AI systems and ‘agent oversight’ workers would monitor, evaluate and govern AI agents for proper behaviour.
These new-age roles could be based upon the five broad skills and involve jobs such as “trust officers… [or] agent experience, as opposed to customer experience”, Le Clair says.
While the New York Times divides future AI-related roles into three categories – trust, integration and taste. Within these broad categories, roles such as AI auditors, translators and ethicist, trust authenticator, AI ‘plumbers’ and designers are envisioned.
However, these are all just theories based on existing information. Le Clair tells me that analysts have been “wrong on predicting the effects of automation on jobs consistently for over 20 years”. He says the true effects of AI on job loss and creation could only be known for sure when it happens.
However, he is particularly concerned about companies becoming “AI-first”.
“They’re basically asking management to prove that these jobs can’t be done by AI before you hire someone.”
The effect of such strategies, according to Le Clair, would result in a direct negative impact on job creation and growth.
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