Final week, Block CEO Jack Dorsey shared that his fintech firm can be cutting 40% of its workforce, arguing that AI would enable him to do extra with smaller groups. Many observers questioned if the large-scale layoffs mirrored the brand new actuality amid speedy AI adoption, and whether or not it was only a matter of time earlier than different firms adopted go well with.
However not everyone seems to be shopping for it. In a post on X, Whoop CEO Will Ahmed shared that his firm—which makes well being and health wearables—can be practically doubling its 800-employee head depend this yr, drawing a distinction with employers which were slashing jobs over the past yr. He then weighed in on the rising development of firms utilizing AI to clarify their layoffs. “Investing in expertise and AI instruments will not be mutually unique,” Ahmed wrote. “Many of those ‘AI layoffs’ are simply firms underperforming or missing a much bigger market alternative.”
In an interview with Bloomberg, Ahmed elaborated on this concept. “There are numerous firms which might be doing layoffs proper now and blaming it on AI,” Ahmed stated. “However they’re really doing layoffs as a result of the companies aren’t performing significantly nicely. And it’s a handy excuse.”
Amid waves of layoffs throughout company America, many leaders and CEOs have been reticent about their causes for trimming head depend, usually gesturing at AI investments once they announce layoffs. In 2025, AI was cited in practically 55,000 layoffs, based on outplacement agency Challenger, Grey & Christmas—and a few leaders, like Dorsey, have been fairly specific about pinning job losses on synthetic intelligence.
Economists, then again, have pointed out that there are numerous causes driving layoffs, from immigration coverage to tariffs and political uncertainty; typically it’s merely a matter of economic efficiency.
As a former Block worker noted in The New York Times this week, a more in-depth have a look at Block’s job losses—which reportedly included cuts to the coverage group and DEI roles—signifies that the layoff technique was probably pushed extra by conventional cost-cutting measures. Some consultants have argued that, like many tech firms, Block overhired throughout the pandemic. (There’s additionally restricted proof that AI is inflicting a broad contraction within the workforce: Goldman Sachs economists recently estimated that the sectors most impacted by AI had seen 5,000 to 10,000 month-to-month internet job losses final yr.) Connecting layoffs to AI, nonetheless, affords a extra palatable framing for shareholders.
Ahmed isn’t the one CEO who has began speaking about this extra brazenly. Lately, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman made similar remarks when interviewed throughout an AI convention in India. “I don’t know what the precise proportion is, however there’s some AI washing the place persons are blaming AI for layoffs that they might in any other case do, after which there’s some actual displacement by AI of various sorts of jobs,” he stated. “I count on we’ll see extra of the latter over time.”
However for each CEO prepared to confess that AI isn’t the only issue driving layoffs, there are many others who preserve touting its potential—and if the 15% bounce in Block’s share value is any measure, they appear incentivized to proceed doing so.
