April 29, 2025
Half of businesses who have made people redundant in favour of AI think they may have messed up
A new poll from Orgvue claims that 39 percent of business leaders who have deployed AI in their firms have already made employees redundant. Of those, 55 percent think there’s a good chance they made wrong decisions about those redundancies. Orgvue first conducted its international survey of 1,000 C-suite and senior decision makers at medium and large organisations in 2024. This year, the research highlights what Orgvue says is growing caution in deploying artificial intelligence and acknowledgment that businesses need to reskill people to work with the technology.
Although the findings suggest leaders regret questionable redundancy decisions, fewer leaders are concerned that AI will replace people in their organisation (48 percent compared to 54 percent in 2024). Yet business leaders also report feeling less responsibility to protect their workforce from redundancies (62 percent compared to 70 percent in 2024), while 34 percent admit they have had employees quit as a direct result of artificial intelligence.
Almost half (47 percent) say that employees using AI without proper controls is one of their biggest fears, such that 80 percent of business leaders plan to reskill employees to use AI effectively and 51 percent say they are introducing internal policies to inform how artificial intelligence is used in the workplace. 51 percent of leaders also believe reskilling is strategically important in preparing their workforce for AI and 41 percent say they have increased their L&D budgets to ensure employees have the right training.
Oliver Shaw, CEO of Orgvue, commented: “While 2024 was the year of investment and optimism, businesses are learning the hard way that replacing people with AI without fully understanding the impact on their workforce can go badly wrong. We’re facing the worst global skills shortage in a generation and dismissing employees without a clear plan for workforce transformation is reckless. Some leaders are waking up to the fact that partnership between people and machines requires an intentional upskilling program if they’re to see the productivity gains that AI promises.
“As in 2024, businesses remain confident that AI will solve their biggest business challenges and will define how they structure their organisation and workforce in the future. But our research suggests this confidence could be misplaced. While it’s encouraging to see investment in AI continue to grow, businesses need a better understanding of how the technology will change their workforce in the coming months and years. Questions remain unanswered over whether artificial intelligence will yield enough return on investment in the near term to justify the costs associated with lost talent and downturn in productivity.”
Skills is a clear theme in this year’s research. More than a third (35 percent) of organisations acknowledge a lack of AI expertise as one of the biggest barriers to successful deployment. One in four (25 percent) admit they don’t know which roles can benefit most from AI and 30 percent don’t know which are most at risk from automation. As a result, 43 percent say they are working with third parties that specialise in AI to help prepare their workforce (up 6 percent from 2024).
Nevertheless, AI remains the dominant driver of workforce transformation, with 72 percent of leaders saying they believe it will remain so for the next three years (up 3 percent from 2024). Investment in AI also remains strong, with 2025 likely to see continued growth. Four in five (80 percent) of businesses that invested in AI in 2024 said they plan to increase their investments in 2025.
Similarly, 76 percent of business leaders are confident that their organisation will be taking full advantage of AI by the end of 2025. Yet this is in stark contrast to the 27 percent of leaders who admit they don’t have a clearly defined roadmap for AI, and the 38 percent that say they still don’t understand the impact that AI will have on their business.
