Will AI Take Your Job? Experts Weigh On Its Growing Impact As Big Firms Slash Workforce Globally

As major IT companies have laid off employees in 2025, with giants like Microsoft, Google, IBM, and Amazon slashing thousands of jobs amid Artificial Intelligence-driven restructuring, one question is on everyone's mind—will AI take over my job?

Over 61,220 employees from 130 tech companies have been laid off in 2025 alone, according to data from the layoff monitoring site Layoffs.fyi.

In the face of this change, industry insiders are offering a mix of caution and clarity.

"Yes, artificial intelligence is a threat to software engineers, as in your thought process has changed a lot," said Arsh Goyal, a Software Engineer. "This month, companies have been doing re-structuring as a part of cost cutting. Some part of this restructuring can be as in AI being in practice. Apart from that many new roles that are coming in AI, so that people can build around those lines," Goyal told NDTV Profit.

"The scenario has been the same from past 2-3 years. The market of freshers is the most hampered, as most engineers passing out each year have lower skill set," he further added.

Startups and AI-native companies are embracing the change head-on. "Internally, we are actively perusing to use AI tools for our entire engineering team," said Ananay Batra, founder and CEO of Listnr AI. "So, the work that took 1-2 weeks, is being done in a day or 2. There is definitely an increase in efficiency."

The World Economic Forum's 2025 report signals major workforce disruptions ahead: by 2030, 39% of current skills will be outdated, and 40% of jobs may face automation-related cuts. Simultaneously, 40% of skills needed will be new or evolving, with 59% of workers requiring training to remain relevant. Encouragingly, 85% of employers plan to prioritise upskilling, and 70% expect to hire talent equipped with emerging skills.

Dr Ramanand, Director, CPRG, noted that "we are concerned about the level of preparation one needs for an AI transformation."

Meanwhile, Shruti Swaroop, founder, Embrace Consulting, pointed out that "Not every job loss was due to AI."

"Secondly, the roles which are going or will go in future can be easily replaced by AI—especially clerical roles where there is not much value addition. Research roles will always be there," she said.

"We also need to understand, that not everything can be replaced by AI, as certain roles will continue to stay. We have to move with time and upskill ourselves. So that we have basic understanding of AI and at least humanise it and get the best quality out of AI," she added.