As the artificial intelligence revolution gathers momentum in the corporate sector, a growing sense of “automation fear” is starting to grip employees. This is the anxiety that their roles might be overtaken by technology.
“I believe that in the next five years, many people will feel the push to automate their work,” said Kyle Hanslovan during a talk at the Web Summit in Vancouver.
Recently, Meta announced layoffs of 8,000 employees, which is about 10% of its staff, while Intuit, the company behind TurboTax, revealed it would be cutting 17% of its global workforce—around 3,000 people—as it accelerates its AI efforts. In a memo about the layoffs, Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg cautioned employees that “success is not guaranteed” in this new age of AI, although he indicated that there won’t be additional layoffs this year.
More than 85,000 jobs are slated to disappear in the tech industry by April 2026, marking a 33% increase from the same time last year. This is according to the recruitment agency Challenger, Gray & Christmas. However, despite over 300,000 layoffs across various sectors this year, this figure is noticeably lower than last year’s total, partly due to significant federal layoffs announced at the beginning of the second Trump administration.
“Disruption is unavoidable. We must accept that fact,” noted Sim Desai, CEO of Hive Capital, during the same panel where Hanslovan spoke. Still, he added, “In the short term, many new jobs will emerge as businesses adopt AI tools.”
This cautious optimism was mirrored by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who shared with CNBC his belief that AI will eventually lead to a labor shortage due to the increased productivity it will foster in the workforce.
Meanwhile, a recent study from Stanford University indicates that nearly 64% of Americans fear AI will lead to job reductions over the next two decades. One notable illustration of this anxiety is a video where former Google CEO Eric Schmidt faced loud boos during his commencement address at the University of Arizona. He spoke about the rapid and significant advancements in AI technology.
New hires might be most impacted; Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of Anthropic, expressed that AI could wipe out half of entry-level white-collar positions within five years. The jobless rate for recent graduates has climbed to 5.6%, significantly above the historical average of 4.5%, according to the New York Fed.
Yet, in the midst of these negative sentiments, many companies continue to recruit. “I’m definitely hiring more now than I was before,” said Hanslovan, mentioning that Huntress is searching for software engineers, detection engineers, product managers, and sales leaders.
Stephen Schwartz, CEO and co-founder of the creator marketplace Whop, remarked, “The future of work is uncertain in the age of AI,” but he also suggested he’s not pessimistic about AI displacing everyone’s jobs. He anticipates that, “in two years, our team will be larger than it is now.”
Despite widespread apprehension among employees, the U.S. economy added a notable 304,000 jobs through 2026, based on the Department of Labor’s recent employment report. The unemployment rate stands at a low 4.3%.
This context seems to have influenced President Trump’s decision to delay signing an AI executive order aimed at ensuring the federal government rigorously evaluates AI models for cybersecurity risks. He expressed concern that such a move could undermine America’s competitive edge in the global AI landscape, where the United States remains the leader.
