In the gold rush of technological advancement, it appears that we’ve struck a bit of fool’s gold.
Fifty-five per cent of businesses that made employees redundant due to AI deployments now admit they made the wrong call. Let that sink in. Organizations have essentially said, “Oops, we fired the wrong people.”
It’s the corporate equivalent of buyer’s remorse, except the purchase was AI and the cost was human livelihoods.
Fumbling the technological transition
Orgvue’s latest research of 1,000 C-suite executives reveals organizations fumbling through a technological transition they barely understand. While 76 per cent of leaders express confidence their organization will be “taking full advantage of AI” by year’s end, nearly 40 per cent confess they still don’t understand how the technology will impact their business.
This is like claiming you’ll win Formula 1 while admitting you don’t know how to drive.
The disconnect between confidence and comprehension is striking. Fewer leaders today believe AI will replace people (48 per cent versus 54 per cent last year). Yet simultaneously, fewer feel responsible for protecting their workforce from redundancies. It’s as if we’re saying, “AI probably won’t replace you, but if it does — well, that’s progress.”
Employees quitting over AI
One-third of companies report employees quitting directly because of AI implementations. Imagine watching colleagues being shown the door because of “automation efficiencies,” then being handed new AI tools with minimal training. Who wouldn’t update their LinkedIn profile?
This isn’t just bad HR management; it’s bad business strategy. As Orgvue’s CEO Oliver Shaw points out, “We’re facing the worst global skills shortage in a generation.”
The research shows a dawning recognition of this misstep. Eighty per cent of organizations now plan to reskill employees to work effectively with AI, and 41 per cent report increasing L&D budgets. After the initial “replace” reflex, businesses are pivoting toward a “retrain” approach.
But why did so many jump to replacement before retraining? Perhaps because one approach requires only a purchase order while the other demands something more complex: organizational reimagining.
There is plenty we don’t know
A quarter of companies admit they don’t know which roles can benefit most from AI, while 30 per cent can’t identify which positions face the greatest automation risk. This honesty represents progress. Yet investment in AI continues to grow, with 80 per cent of businesses that invested in 2024 planning to increase their commitment in 2025.
The most revealing statistic: 47 per cent of executives fear employees using AI without proper controls. This suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of how transformative technologies actually integrate into organizations. Innovation rarely follows a top-down deployment plan; it emerges through experimentation and adaptation.
For HR professionals, the message is clear: AI implementation isn’t primarily a technological challenge; it’s an organizational design and change management challenge. The question isn’t whether to adopt AI — that train has left the station — but how to restructure work so humans and machines complement rather than compete with each other.
What’s missing? Humility
This requires something often missing from AI strategies: humility. In our rush to implement AI, we’ve underestimated the complexity of human work and overestimated machines’ ability to replicate it.
The future of work isn’t about humans versus machines. It’s about organizations that understand the difference between tasks that should be automated and work that should be elevated. Those that get this distinction right won’t be among the 55 per cent regretting their redundancy decisions.
They’ll be too busy creating the future we actually want to live in.
