A Goldman Sachs report indicates that artificial intelligence has reduced U.S. monthly payroll growth by approximately 16,000 jobs over the past year, as companies continue to announce workforce reductions and cite AI as a contributing factor. These cuts, particularly impacting knowledge workers, serve to create "budget room" for corporations, even when they do not immediately translate into stronger returns on investment.
Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that AI was the leading cause for job cuts in April 2026 for the second consecutive month, accounting for 21,490 cuts in April alone and a total of 49,135 cuts so far this year.
Knowledge workers, including software engineers, finance professionals, accountants, and lawyers, face the sharpest exposure to AI automation, according to David Shrier, professor of AI & Innovation at Imperial College London. Their output, which AI can replicate at superhuman speed around the clock, makes their positions vulnerable to capital's drive for efficiency.
Capital's New Tool for Wage Suppression
While companies frequently blame AI for layoffs, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has highlighted "AI washing," suggesting that some workforce reductions attributed to AI may stem from other corporate cost-cutting measures. This practice allows capital to leverage technological advancement as a pretext for surplus extraction through labor displacement.
A Gartner study revealed that roughly 80% of organizations piloting or deploying autonomous business capabilities reported workforce reductions. However, these cuts did not consistently lead to a stronger return on investment, according to Gartner’s Helen Poitevin, who noted that "Workforce reductions may create budget room, but they do not create return." This indicates that the immediate benefit for capital is often reduced labor costs rather than increased productivity.
Companies that did achieve stronger returns on investment were those investing in skills, roles, and operating models that enable human workers to guide and expand autonomous systems, a strategy Gartner described as "human-amplified business." This demonstrates that AI is being integrated not to replace all labor, but to reorganize it in ways that maximize capital's gains, often by intensifying the work of remaining employees.
The Burden on Labor
In response to this systemic displacement, workers are advised to individually "invest in skills that are structurally hard to automate," such as physical duties, emotional and social awareness, interpersonal skills, and judgment. They are also encouraged to "embrace AI and learn how to make it work for them," including using chatbots, coding tools, and AI agents.
Professor Shrier further suggested that "it’s never been a better time to be an entrepreneur," implying that individual initiative can overcome the structural challenges posed by AI-driven automation. This advice diverts attention from the collective power of labor and places the burden of adaptation solely on the individual worker, rather than addressing the systemic forces driving job insecurity.
Future Promises vs. Present Reality
While Gartner's research, based on 350 global business executives at companies with at least $1 billion in annual revenue, suggests that autonomous business could create more jobs in 2 to 3 years (by 2028 to 2029), this distant projection offers little solace to the thousands of workers facing immediate job cuts and reduced payroll growth.