Annie Tsai

I actually sat on this newsletter draft for a week. Truthfully, things started to sound a bit like a broken record and it was getting me a little down. The cycle of surprisingly impressive earnings calls, CEO victory laps on “efficiency gains” paired with yet another wave of layoffs. It’s all starting to calcify into a new era of performance metrics: $1 million in revenue per employee, full-stack AI operations, and radical cost reduction. All of which is fine until you remember that we built companies on something else entirely for someone specific – people.

But instead this week, let’s look harder at the other side of the story for signs of a resurrection in investing in humans. There’s no shortage of headlines of displacement but I think you are going to agree with me that in the shadows lie a whiff of workforce revival in the air. One where companies, institutions, and even forgotten workers themselves are choosing to invest, upskill, and build the next chapter.

AI Layoffs Are Picking Up, But There Alternatives

TCS, India’s largest IT outsourcing company, just cut 12,000 jobs, citing client demand for more AI-powered operations. Analysts say that without serious investment in retraining, India could lose half a million outsourcing jobs in the next few years. Read more →

Meanwhile, Klarna is just one of many companies who continue to hire after a swath of layoffs tied to AI. The Swedish fintech is rehiring human agents after realizing that automating its entire customer support operation came with tradeoffs that couldn’t be ignored. Read more →

Insight: The best AI deployments both streamline and empower workforces. The difference lies in whether companies are thinking about people as an input to eliminate or an asset to evolve.

And Yet, BigCo is Investing Big Time in the Next Generation

Microsoft is committing $4 billino to bring AI into education and nonprofits, including training 400,000 teachers in AI use. Google is spending $1 billion to expand AI training capacity at US universities and nonprofits, giving students free access to advanced AI tools.

Insight: While companies are shedding workforces on their home turf, they are investing in human capital strategy at scale.

Indeed is Delivering a Playbook for Human-Centric AI Adoption

Indeed found that 75% of US workers expect their roles to change because of AI, but only 45% have received any AI training. Their response: a company-wide upskilling push with targeted tutorials, hands-on use cases, and peer learning networks.

Also, for everyone out there - stop waiting to be trained by someone else and get on there and just start using AI! AI will literally train you on how to use it to do what you need to do.

California Moves Early on AI Reskilling

California Governor Newsom announced a statewide AI education initiative in partnership with Microsoft, Google, IBM, and Adobe. The plan is to bring free AI training into high schools, community colleges, and CSU campuses. The message is simple: Don’t wait for jobs to disappear. Build the skill base before the fallout. Read more →

Insight: The public sector is moving. In the private sector, you’ve already invested in the talent pool by hiring and betting on them. Instead of blanket layoffs and blank slating, assess your current talent pipeline and build the skill base now.

Is Loyalty Dead in the AI Age?

AT&T’s CEO recently sent a blunt message: workplace loyalty is over. In his words, “No one is guaranteed a job.”

That’s 100% true. But here’s the harder question: what is the new social contract between company and worker in an AI economy? What does “mutual gain” look like when models outperform juniors and contractors replace teams? Read more →

Insight: If companies want trust, they’ll need to offer transparency, reskilling, and visible commitment to human potential—even when the machines can do the job faster.

The Risk of Losing the Next Generation of Leaders

Goldman Sachs is sounding the alarm: young tech workers are being hit hardest by AI-driven job loss. These are the people who used to move up, lead teams, and eventually run companies. So what happens if we skip a generation? Read the analysis →

Which raises the question… what if this generation decides to build instead of wait to be hired? The Washington Post posits that we may be entering an entrepreneurial revival, powered by displaced talent and AI’s ability to lower startup barriers. I have frequently mentioned the same to founders – it’s never been a better time to be a founder. Read more →

Insight: Companies must stop treating early-career workers as disposable. Mentor them. Equip them with tools. And if you’re not going to hire them, at least consider how you might support them as the next generation of builders, founders, and contributors.

What Businesses Can Do Instead of Mass Slash Jobs

Displacement doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens when companies deploy new tools without redesigning the workflows or rethinking the roles that surround them. Here’s what some organizations are doing to head it off:

• Upskill across the board. Not just your tech teams, give every department the tools to work alongside AI. AI literacy can’t stop at engineering.
• Redesign roles. Use AI to remove drudgery, not meaning. Build jobs that combine human judgment, speed, and context with AI’s raw capabilities.
• Get visible. Track and share how AI tools are impacting productivity, cost, and culture. Don’t just publish another dashboard. Make it a conversation.
• Tell the truth. If you’re cutting roles, say why. If you’re investing in new capabilities, show how they connect to real value creation.

The businesses that treat AI as a force multiplier, not a shortcut to cost savings, will be the ones that survive the next wave of change with their credibility intact.

Your Takeaway This Week: The Future of Work Is NOT Inevitable

There’s a version of the future where millions of jobs vanish and nobody is ready. And there’s a version where we use this moment to redesign work in a way that’s smarter, faster, and more human. The only difference between those two outcomes is what we choose to do right now – both for others and for ourselves.

If you’re a leader, this is your chance to set the tone. And let’s not be naive, many companies are overweight with senior leadership too. There is no more “hanging back” or “wait and see.”

If you’re an operator, this is your moment to make your impact visible. Either way, the question is the same: Are you going to let it happen to you, or are you going to help shape what comes next? Are you taking the initiative and taking one of the hundreds of free online courses or simply logging onto Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, ChatGPT, or your favorite LLM and trying something new? Between reading this and receiving this next issue, take the challenge if you haven’t. I can’t wait to hear about how it goes.