Cutting people for AI?

I came across an industry article saying that the hottest new job title in corporate America isn’t “AI specialist.” It’s “Please come back; We made a terrible mistake.””

Turns out, a lot of companies that swapped people for AI are now sheepishly rehiring the very humans they let go. This is quite embarrassing because it means that the company made a mistake. It’s like tossing out the instruction manual, smashing the appliance and then paying a premium to get the manual reprinted.

A lesson to consider here is this: AI can crunch numbers but can’t fake human judgment.

The real question isn’t, “How many people can AI replace?” The smarter question is, “What are these people actually doing, and where does real human decision-making actually live?”

There’s a canyon between cutting a task and cutting a person. Automate a task? Sure, that’s child’s play. Reports practically write themselves now.

But judgment, context, experience and that slippery thing called ethical discernment? Good luck finding those in a job description. They don’t show up on the org chart either. They live in hallway whispers, in the muscle memory of daily habits and in the scars and stories you earn over years.

The real organization isn’t what’s printed on paper. It’s what happens in the inbox, the crisis meeting, the customer call, and yes, the coffee line.

Before you even think about swinging the layoff axe, map the real workflow, not the fantasy version in your head. Pick any process: sales proposal, customer complaint, hiring decision, onboarding. Walk it step by step.

At every turn, ask: “What sets this in motion?” “Who actually does it?” “Where does judgment quietly slip in?” “What can AI handle without causing chaos, and where does a human need to step in, fix an issue or take the blame?”

AI can summarize data, but only a person knows when the numbers are lying. AI can draft a reply, but only a human senses when a client is quietly fuming.

Speed without direction just gets you lost faster.

If your company already uses AI, pay attention to the moments when the system freezes and waits for a human thumbs-up. Those pause points? That’s where the gold is buried. They show you exactly where judgment is non-negotiable.

When the system says, “Do not go ahead without approval,” that’s code for: “This is risky, sensitive or could blow up in your face.”

Don’t just study what AI is allowed to do; obsess over where it’s told to stop.

And here’s the part nobody puts in the layoff memo: your best people carry knowledge that isn’t written down anywhere. They know which customer needs kid gloves, which vendor is all talk and which deal looks shiny but smells fishy.

That kind of wisdom is earned, not documented.

If you let go of the person before capturing what they know, you’re not just inefficient — you’re expensively clueless.

So before you cut anyone, ask, “Who holds the secret sauce, what decisions are they making off the record and how can you bottle that expertise before it walks out the door?”

Instead of asking, “Who can we eliminate?” It may be better to shift to, “Where can this person create more value now that AI is handling the grunt work?”

If AI can draft the report, let the analyst analyze. If AI can summarize customer calls, let the manager focus on coaching and building relationships.

AI isn’t a headcount machete. It’s your force multiplier.

Beware of invisible judgment hiding in plain sight. The customer service agent isn’t just closing tickets. She’s preserving trust. The project manager isn’t just sending reminders. He’s defusing conflict before it starts. The operations person isn’t just moving tasks along. She might be preventing small cracks from turning into structural disasters.

So before automating a role or process, ask, “Is there judgment involved here?”

If there is, do not automate on autopilot.

That’s why leaders must keep reviewing the work, not just the workflow. AI may handle the task, but humans still carry purpose, context, ethics and accountability.

Don’t treat organizational design like a once-a-decade house cleaning. Make it a quarterly leadership ritual: What workflows have changed, where AI is already being used, where human judgment still reigns and which roles need redesign instead of termination.

The companies now sheepishly rehiring the people they cut are learning the hard way: you can’t automate what you never bothered to understand and you can’t cut people cleanly if you never mapped the knowledge they carried.

Join Francis Kong for another run of his one-day Level Up Leadership: Agile. Able. Adaptive seminar-workshop. Join us at One Rockwell East Tower, Makati for a practical and inspiring learning experience designed for leaders, managers, entrepreneurs, business owners and professionals who want to lead with greater clarity, confidence, courage and competence in a disrupted world. Seats are limited. For inquiries and registration, contact April at +63 928 559 1798 or Sylene at +63 976 638 8974.Visit www.levelupleadership.ph