Executives are increasingly blaming artificial intelligence for sweeping layoffs even when the technology is barely in place, Forrester has warned, with analyst J.P. Gownder saying that in 'nine out of 10' such cases the AI capability behind those cuts simply does not exist.
The news came after a wave of job reductions at some of the world's biggest employers, many of which have been wrapped in the language of automation and digital reinvention. Nike has announced around 1,400 job cuts tied to restructuring and streamlining.Meta has reportedly moved to shed about 8,000 roles while spending heavily on AI infrastructure. Microsoft continues to reconfigure teams around AI priorities. On paper, this looks like a textbook technological revolution. Forrester's analysis suggests something more prosaic is often going on.
Forrester forecasts that AI and automation will eliminate 6.1% of US jobs, or about 10.4 million roles, by 2030. The number is stark, and the firm is not downplaying the disruption. What it does question is the neat story many boards now tell: that highly capable AI systems are already in place, ready to step neatly into the shoes of the people being shown the door.
Gownder and his team have spent months asking a simple question of companies announcing AI-driven layoffs: is there a mature AI system running at scale that can genuinely replace the affected roles? 'Nine out of 10 times, the answer is no,' he says.
If that is right, the 'dirty secret' behind many AI layoffs is that they are, in substance, old-fashioned cost cuts dressed in futuristic language. Forrester's January 2026 forecast expects generative AI to drive around half of all AI-related job displacement by 2030. Yet it also concludes that far more positions will be reshaped than abolished outright.
The tension is obvious. Current AI tools can draft, summarise and assist, but they are not magic workforce erasers. When executives imply otherwise, they invite problems on several fronts. Investors may overestimate how sophisticated the company's operations really are. Staff may assume powerful automation systems are already humming away in the background. Boards may even bake unrealistic productivity gains into their financial plans, only to scramble when the promised efficiencies fail to materialise.
Over time, that mismatch between AI rhetoric and AI reality does not just bruise reputations. It corrodes trust inside the organisation, where people are usually better placed than anyone to know what technology is actually running on the shop floor.
Some companies have tried to steer clear of this trap. In Nike's internal briefings around its recent reduction, leadership reportedly stressed 'operational simplification,' technology restructuring and supply chain efficiency, casting the cuts as part of a broader turnaround and a move towards a 'leaner, faster and more agile organisation.' That is corporate language, certainly, but it stops short of insisting that AI systems are already taking over.
Others have been less careful, loudly presenting job losses as evidence of an AI transformation before any meaningful deployment has occurred. According to Forrester, some firms have subsequently faced sceptical questions from investors and visible resistance from employees once the gap between promise and reality became clear. There have even been cases, the research suggests, where roles had to be quietly rehired when the tools supposed to replace them could not reliably do the work.
Nothing in Forrester's report implies that AI layoffs are imaginary. Its own numbers confirm that millions of jobs will go. What it argues, with some force, is that sequencing matters. Too many boards are announcing AI-related cuts first and trying to build the AI capacity afterwards.
Source: International Business Times UK
