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IBM has used AI – specifically, AI agents – to replace several hundred HR workers across the company. CEO Arvind Krishna told The Wall Street Journal the company has been able to redirect budget to hire more programmers and sales people.
A number of business leaders are reportedly holding off on new hiring as they get their arms around the use of AI in their industry. As the Journal notes, however, there’ve been no reports of AI driving widespread layoffs.
“While we have done a huge amount of work inside IBM on leveraging AI and automation on certain enterprise workflows, our total employment has actually gone up, because what it does is it gives you more investment to put into other areas,” Krishna said.
IBM is incorporating the use of agents into areas like software engineering, sales and marketing, which Krishna calls “critical thinking” functions. Workers there take on responsibilities and tasks that “face up or against other humans, as opposed to just doing rote process work,” he said.
“Any tasks or jobs in the company that could be automated by AI will happen within the next year. For any jobs that cannot be automated, workers will need to understand how to work
