UPS, Cisco, and other companies are using AI to adjust their workforce

Some companies have been adjusting their workforce as they simultaneously embrace artificial intelligence and automation more, according to Forbes.

The outlet reported over the weekend that Duolingo, UPS, Klarna, Cisco and Inuit are among some of the firms that have demonstrated that trend.

Duolingo recently said it was striving to be “AI-first,” with CEO Luis von Ahn outlining various measures that it will take to help accomplish that in a publicly available company-wide message, per Forbes.

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Von Ahn said in the message that Duolingo will “gradually stop using contractors to do work that AI can handle” and that headcount “will only be given if a team cannot automate more of their work.” When hiring and doing performance reviews, people’s abilities to use AI will also be part of what the company considers, according to the message.

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The CEO said the “AI-first” moves focused on “removing bottlenecks so we can do more with the outstanding Duos we have” rather than “replacing Duos with AI.” 

At UPS, some 20,000 employees are getting the ax, the company announced in late April. 

Forbes reported that UPS said AI wasn’t directly taking the place of employees, but the company is working to increase its efficiency through more automation and AI tools, something that the outlet said helped with shrinking its labor demands. 

UPS and Amazon, its largest customer, agreed in January that the e-commerce giant would reduce its package volume with UPS by more than 50%.

Klarna has been leaning into AI more in recent years, using it for customer service, transaction processing and other functions, according to Forbes. 

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CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski has said in the past that certain human work functions can be done by AI, the outlet reported.

In February last year, the company said that an AI chatbot it launched was capable of doing the work of 700 full-time agents.

AI has enabled Klarna to have a smaller workforce, according to Forbes.

Last fall, Cisco Systems embarked on a restructuring so it could invest in AI, cybersecurity and other growth areas, the outlet reported. When announcing the restructuring, the company also said in an SEC filing the move would “drive more efficiencies in its business.” 

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Roughly 7% of the company’s workers lost their jobs as part of the restructuring.

Cisco has been putting artificial intelligence into network management and customer support systems, Forbes reported. 

Meanwhile, Intuit announced layoffs of 1,800 workers in July last year as part of a reorganization to boost its investments in artificial intelligence, according to the outlet. 

CEO Sasan Goodarzi said the reorganization would “enable us to allocate additional investments to our most critical areas to support our customers and drive growth,” per a company-wide email that the company included in an SEC filing at the time.

The company identified AI-powered tools it offers as some of the initiatives that it wanted to put more money into, Forbes reported.

(REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File)

At the same time, Goodarzi said Intuit would hire 1,800 new people “primarily in engineering, product, and customer-facing roles” to support its growth areas.

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AI started seeing a major increase in uptake in the wake of OpenAI releasing its ChatGPT chatbot in late 2022, spurring major investments and innovations in the sector.