Tech giants unite to figure out which jobs AI is taking

Tech giants are spending billions building AI to automate human work, but now they want you to know they care about your job.

Cisco, Google, Microsoft, and IBM launched the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium. Led by Cisco, the coalition plans to study how AI is reshaping the tech workforce and provide actionable training recommendations for displaced workers, per TechCrunch.

Retraining the workers they just let go

First on the agenda: the group will evaluate AI’s impact on 56 critical Information and Communications Technology (ICT) roles. These jobs were selected for their strategic importance and high exposure to automation, with the consortium promising to publish its initial findings and training blueprints this summer.

Yet the optics are undeniably awkward. The companies funding this initiative have spent the last year leading massive job cuts. Google trimmed hundreds of core engineering and hardware roles on January 10, including staff working on its voice-activated assistant, giving affected employees until April 9 to find new internal spots. That followed a 6% cut of 12,000 workers in early 2023.

CEOs across corporate America are openly leaning into automation. Leaders at IBM and UPS have warned that AI-driven automation will permanently eliminate certain jobs, and Dropbox cited AI when announcing staff reductions. A McKinsey poll found that 25% of professionals anticipate AI-related layoffs, while a ResumeBuilder survey of 900 CEOs revealed that four in ten respondents plan to replace human workers with AI this year.

The tech career slump is real

For workers on the ground, the golden age of tech employment feels over. Roger Lee, founder of Layoffs.fyi, noted that landing a tech role has become extraordinarily difficult. Recruiters and sales staff are abandoning the sector entirely, while software engineers and data scientists are accepting lower compensation, worse working conditions, and reduced stability just to stay employed.

Data from tracker Comprehensive.io backs this up, showing tech compensation has largely flatlined over the last two years. While IBM and Intel previously promised to train millions in AI, industry analysts point out a glaring problem: demand for net-new AI jobs appears to be relatively stagnant, leaving retrained workers with nowhere obvious to go.

Why it matters

If you work in tech, don't ignore that list of 56 jobs when it comes out this summer. In practice, that catalogue serves as an explicit hit list of roles tech giants believe can be hollowed out or automated away. However, relying on corporate-sponsored training modules won't guarantee job security. Workers need to use these disclosures to assess their own vulnerability and integrate AI into their workflows before their employers do it for them.

From an industry standpoint, we think this consortium looks mostly like a preemptive PR and regulatory buffer. Tech leaders are answering to Wall Street by aggressively cutting payroll, but facing mounting blowback for destabilizing the broader job market. Launching an upskilling alliance allows them to claim the moral high ground while subtlely steering curriculum toward their own proprietary ecosystems.

Ultimately, there is an unresolved contradiction at the heart of this project. The primary economic incentive driving modern AI development is labor cost reduction. Pretending that the very companies racing to automate their workforces can also retrain everyone into equally lucrative tech careers feels disconnected from market realities, especially when baseline tech hiring remains frozen.