The Perception Gap Is the Most Important Number in Enterprise AI
CFOs: 9x more AI layoffs than last year...The Labor Department is teaching AI literacy...Dallas Fed explains who AI helps and who it hurts...OpenAI hiring thousands while its customers cut thousands
01 / CFOs privately expect AI layoffs to be nine times higher this year. The more interesting number is the one they’re getting wrong.
A Duke/Federal Reserve CFO survey reported by Fortune finds that chief financial officers expect AI-attributed job cuts to reach roughly 500,000 this year, up from 55,000 last year. The researchers call it a rounding error against the overall U.S. workforce, not a doomsday scenario. But the second finding is the one worth sitting with: perceived productivity gains from AI are running ahead of actual gains. Companies think AI is delivering more than it is.
The gap between what leaders believe AI is delivering and what it’s actually delivering is the most important number in enterprise right now. It explains both the layoff confidence and the coming disappointment. When the perception catches up to the reality, the question will be whether organizations invested in capability or just cut headcount and hoped.
02 / The federal government is now teaching AI literacy.
The U.S. Labor Department is launching a free AI literacy course aimed at Americans who are uneasy about the technology. Axios reports the move is framed as a response to growing concern that AI will reshape work faster than institutions can prepare people.
When the federal government starts teaching AI literacy, the “should we?” phase is over. The question now is whether public programs can move at the speed the workforce actually needs.
Community colleges have been building this road for two years. The federal government just noticed there’s a road. We cannot move fast enough.
03 / AI replaces what you learned in school. It amplifies what you learned on the job.
The Dallas Federal Reserve published research showing that AI substitutes for entry-level workers who carry codified knowledge (textbook learning, documented procedures) but complements experienced workers who carry tacit knowledge (judgment, pattern recognition, the kind of understanding you can only build by doing the work). Employment is falling for young workers in AI-exposed fields. Wages for experienced workers in those same fields are rising.
This is the most precise framing I’ve seen of who AI helps and who it hurts. The career ladder isn’t disappearing. The bottom rungs are. Organizations that want to develop AI-capable workforces need to rethink how entry-level employees gain experience, because the old model of starting with codifiable tasks and slowly building tacit knowledge is exactly the model AI disrupts first.
04 / The companies building AI are hiring. The companies using AI are cutting.
OpenAI is planning to nearly double its workforce to 8,000 by year’s end, hiring across product, engineering, sales, and “technical ambassadorship.” Anthropic is approaching $19 billion in annualized revenue. Meanwhile, Block cut 40% of its workforce. Atlassian cut 10%. Oracle is cutting up to 30,000.
Both of these things are happening in the same economy at the same time. The question for every organization is which side of that line you’re learning to stand on.
The best advice I ever got about technology came from a volleyball coach. She said “the fundamentals don’t change, the speed does.”
Todd McLees is the co-founder of humanskills.ai.
Directing Intelligence: Work arrives when there’s signal, not on a schedule.