Help, Artificial Intelligence Is Going to Steal My Job!

Mass layoffs, AI everywhere, apocalyptic predictions… and what if everything you’re reading were nothing more than a carefully crafted bit of storytelling? Before panicking, here’s why AI won’t steal your job, why it can’t replace what truly makes you valuable — and how to use the current chaos to stay indispensable.

Picture the scene: It’s November 2025. You’re scrolling through the news on a Tuesday morning, coffee in hand, when a string of catastrophic headlines on LinkedIn stops you dead in your tracks.

Intel, which had announced in March 2025 that it would cut 21,000 jobs — about 20% of its workforce — now appears in an even darker light: analysts say the company has actually removed close to 35,500 jobs in under two years, including over 20,000 in just three months under its new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan.
Microsoft is at 15,000 layoffs, with employees whispering off the record that the company is trying to “replace as many roles as possible with AI agents.”
Amazon plans to eliminate 14,000 managerial jobs to save $3.6 billion while accelerating the deployment of AI agents to take over part of their tasks.
Accenture has shown 12,000 employees the door — the ones who didn’t know how to use AI.

And this is only a sample. In the first half of 2025, more than 80,000 tech jobs vanished. In October alone, 150,000 Americans lost their jobs — the worst monthly figure in 22 years.

And there you are, mid-sip, feeling a cold shiver climb up your spine. What if I’m next? What if the wave reaches Europe?

Spoiler: The villain isn’t who you think

Daron Acemoglu, Nobel Prize in Economics 2024, drops a bomb with a smile: AI will affect only 5% of tasks over ten years. Expected productivity gain? 1%. Translation: roughly the equivalent of a decent coffee on a Monday morning.

The real life of AI projects

Here’s what actually happens with AI projects, far from the lab demos and glossy slides, in the messy world of real clients and real deadlines:

80% of AI projects fail before deployment.
70% of pilots never make it past testing.
Often, behind the “revolutionary AI” label, you’ll find nothing more than simple scripts — instructions repeating the same tasks — or RPA, those software robots that automate mundane operations like filling out forms. Everything is rebranded as “Artificial Intelligence” and sold as magic. Except technically, it’s not even AI.
And thankfully so: real AI couldn’t even do this repetitive work properly!

Why? Because AI generates variable responses, can make mistakes, and hallucinates. In the legal field, where precision is mandatory, the best models hallucinate between 58% and 88% of the time, according to a Stanford study. Scripts and RPA, on the other hand, mechanically follow fixed rules. It’s just old-school automation, dressed up as innovation, with a consultant’s invoice on top.

But wait, it gets better.

When saving money with AI costs more

Klarna, which boasted about saving 40 million by firing human agents, had to start rehiring quietly. Customer satisfaction had collapsed like a failed soufflé. Apparently, customers prefer speaking to humans when their problems are real.
IBM and its miracle AskHR chatbot? Same story. The bot couldn’t understand conflicts, emotions, or all those complicated things we call… human beings. Rehiring ensued — discreetly, of course.
According to Forrester’s “Predictions 2026: The Future of Work,” 55% of employers regret firing workers because of AI. Not bad, right?
And the cherry on top: Orgvue data shows companies spend about $1.27 for every dollar “saved” through layoffs, once severance packages, unemployment insurance, and productivity loss are factored in.

In short: they fire people to save $1. They spend $1.27, realize the AI can’t actually do the job, and then hire again — but cheaper, elsewhere, and preferably out of sight.

The real scenario (the one no one tells you about)

The OECD’s October 2025 Economic Outlook reveals that global growth is slowing (from 3.3% in 2024 to 3.2% in 2025, then 2.9% in 2026). More importantly, the overall outlook is deteriorating: rising trade barriers, political uncertainty, declining business and consumer confidence. Consumption slows, markets wobble, investment shrinks.

Tech companies out of their depth

Tech firms, which had hired like it was an all-you-can-eat buffet during the pandemic, now find themselves with oversized teams and growth that simply refuses to take off.

Question: How do you announce massive layoffs without looking like incompetent managers who completely miscalculated?
Answer: AI! The perfect, modern, sexy, unquestionable excuse.

AI: the perfect pretext

Saying “we’re laying people off because of AI” sounds far better than “we over-hired like cowboys, our forecasts were a mess, and now shareholders are breathing down our necks.” Or worse: “we’re losing money, our sales are crashing, and we’re restructuring in a panic.” This narrative pleases everyone: executives who save face, investors who applaud the “technological shift,” and AI players who need people to believe in the revolution to justify their sky-high valuations.

This excuse spread beyond Silicon Valley fast. UPS cuts 48,000 jobs? AI. Target fires 1,800 employees after four years of sluggish sales? AI. Paramount axes 2,000 staff amid financial hemorrhage? Guess. Even Lufthansa blames AI for 4,000 planned job cuts by 2030 without bothering to explain how…

It’s pure storytelling. And it works because people want to believe it. As MIT professor David Autor cynically puts it: “Whether AI is the reason or not, you’d be wise to give AI the credit.”

What Artificial Intelligence actually reveals (and it’s not bad at all)

Behind this conveniently crafted narrative, something unexpected emerges: AI isn’t replacing human competence. It’s revealing it. Because once you’ve automated the repetitive tasks, what’s left?

Nuance — that subtle sense of context no algorithm can grasp.
Relationship — the reason a client stays or leaves, the glue of a team. Humans prefer speaking to someone who understands their struggles rather than a chatbot looping “I didn’t understand your request.”
Judgment — knowing when to follow the rule and when to bend it, distinguishing between technical and human issues, catching what isn’t being said out loud.
Creativity —Not the superficial kind, but the sort that invents, breaks, dares, and looks at a problem thinking “what if we tried something completely different?”

AI imitates and accelerates, but it understands nothing. It produces content without purpose, answers without listening, calculates without feeling. And that is exactly where you become indispensable.

Okay — but what do we do now?

First, stop panicking every time you see doomsday predictions on LinkedIn.

1. Look at this circus with clarity

The alarmist headlines, the catastrophe-posts, the end-of-the-world timelines? Noise. Focus instead on what you control: your skills, your network, your adaptability. Everything else is folklore.

2. Invest in what cannot be automated

Develop your relational intelligence. Sharpen your critical thinking. Learn how to tell gripping stories, solve impossible problems, and navigate ambiguity. That’s your real value — not slide-copying or spreadsheet-filling. AI can simulate anything, but it cannot invent, sense, or understand on your behalf.

3. Build your safety net (not just your résumé)

In turbulent times, what saves you isn’t your list of certifications — it’s who knows you, who appreciates you, who thinks of you when an opportunity pops up. Family, friends, colleagues: these ties are your most precious capital. Nurture them.

4. For heaven’s sake, stay curious

Curiosity isn’t a weekend hobby. It’s a power. It lets you see opportunities where others only see closed doors. It pushes you to explore uncharted paths and turn adversity into a playing field rather than an anxiety chamber.

And now?

Let’s be honest: the market is tightening, competent people are getting fired, and this won’t magically improve tomorrow morning. But while everyone is staring at AI like the Big Bad Wolf, the real question is elsewhere: what are you going to do with this moment?

Because you have two options.

Option 1: Panic. Refresh LinkedIn endlessly. Count layoffs the way others count sheep. Convince yourself it’s over. A legitimate option. Exhausting, but legitimate.
Option 2: See this circus for what it is — a story that benefits everyone except you — and decide that your path won’t be dictated by an editorialist’s predictions or a hyper-funded startup’s promises.

Artificial Intelligence won’t steal my job!

AI won’t replace what makes you good at what you do (at least not right now). Not because “humans are irreplaceable” — we all know that tune — but because companies trying to replace you are discovering it simply doesn’t work.

So yes, stay alert. But not paralyzed.

And if the world of work is reinventing itself, you might as well be among those shaping it rather than those waiting for someone else to tell them what comes next.