In Fast Company: Why Leaders Shouldn’t Blame Layoffs on AI

CEO Andy Hamilton wrote for Fast Company’s Ask the Experts series about a pattern showing up across the market: companies citing AI as the reason for layoffs when the real drivers are things like overhiring, softer demand, or product bets that didn’t pan out. Investors seem to reward the AI narrative, but Andy argues that story has a cost employers aren’t pricing in.

Andy writes from two vantage points: as a CEO who still has to make hard calls every quarter, and as someone who’s been laid off himself. His core argument is simple: if the story leadership tells the market doesn’t match what employees already know to be true, the company has effectively taught everyone that “leadership says what’s useful, not what’s true,” and that lesson outlives any single announcement.

He walks through why remaining employees are watching closely, why investor praise doesn’t equal public perception, and why leaders who are honest about the real reasons behind a cut, even unglamorous ones, build more trust than those chasing a better-sounding narrative. It’s a piece grounded in the same belief that shapes When’s own work: how you treat people on their way out says everything about who you are as a company.

Highlights from the article

• Companies are increasingly citing AI as the reason for layoffs, even when the real drivers are overhiring, softer demand, or product bets that didn’t pay off.

• Investors seem to reward the AI narrative with a stock bump, but that story only works if it holds up once employees compare notes.

• Remaining employees watch closely who got cut and why; the explanation leadership gives shapes morale for months afterward.

• Being honest about the real driver behind a cut, even an unglamorous one, builds more trust than dressing it up in a trendier story.

• As AI reshapes more roles, specificity matters more, not less: there’s a real difference between restructuring around an AI investment and telling people a model replaced them.

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