Currently, Cloudflare is becoming one of the latest technology companies to publicly link personnel cuts with the development of artificial intelligence (AI), showing that this technology is beginning to profoundly change the organizational structure in the industry.
In a commentary published in The Wall Street Journal, Cloudflare CEO - Mr. Matthew Prince said that AI can now replace many jobs related to monitoring, evaluation and measurement of business performance.
According to Mr. Prince, most of the personnel affected in the recent dismissal of Cloudflare belong to the "measuring work" group, including intermediate management, finance, legal, internal audit and revenue recognition departments.
Earlier this month, Cloudflare announced a 20% reduction in its workforce, equivalent to about 1,100 employees. The company said AI is changing the type of jobs businesses need in the new phase.
Mr. Matthew Prince said that AI systems currently have the ability to analyze and evaluate organizations with speed and accuracy far exceeding many human employees.
According to him, AI can operate continuously, tirelessly and process large amounts of data with higher objectivity.
However, Cloudflare CEO believes that in the short term, positions directly generating products or revenue such as software engineers and sales teams will still play an important role. The company said it will continue to recruit in areas serving growth.
However, the increasing number of businesses using AI systems capable of automatically completing tasks and supporting decision-making is raising concerns about the future of jobs in the technology industry.
Since ChatGPT exploded at the end of 2022, the AI generation wave has prompted many companies to promote automation and re-evaluate human resource needs.
Not only Cloudflare, many other large technology companies have also cut labor for reasons related to AI.
In February, financial technology company Block, run by Jack Dorsey, cut about 40% of its workforce. Meanwhile, Meta is also streamlining about 10% of its employees.
According to the human resources consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas (USA), in this year alone, more than 49,000 jobs in the US were cut due to reasons related to AI, almost equivalent to the total of the previous year.
However, some experts are still skeptical about businesses blaming AI. American technology investor Marc Andreessen believes that many companies are actually still dealing with the consequences of the massive recruitment phase after the COVID-19 epidemic.
However, many studies show that AI is increasingly capable of handling tasks in the fields of finance, law and management.
A recent study by Anthropic also warned that even future engineering and sales jobs may be affected by AI automation.
The wave of personnel cuts at technology companies shows that AI is no longer just a supporting tool, but is gradually becoming a factor reshaping the way businesses operate and organize the labor force.
