AI Job Redesign: How to Avoid Layoffs and Drive Profitable Business Transformation
AI has become famous for its many benefits and infamous for replacing jobs. The “Godfather” of AI, Geoffrey Hinton, recently predicted that AI will replace many more jobs in 2026.
Some executives will see this prediction and get excited about reducing headcount. Smarter executives will think differently, according to HR industry leader Josh Bersin. While his prediction that AI is being used as an excuse for layoffs rather than actually replacing jobs may have just been toppled by Hinton, he asserts that job redesign will be more profitable than layoffs and elimination.
Retaining Employees is Your Most Profitable AI Strategy
Every manager and HR staffer knows that retaining employees has its benefits. Retention helps maintain company knowledge and mitigates the costs of training and onboarding, which can run up to 70% of an employee’s annual salary. Employee churn also damages morale and can hurt company culture.
For any good employee, the benefits of retaining them are clear. If their role needs to change due to AI capabilities, it can be difficult and costly to reskill, but it is often preferred to losing talent.
Existing employees know the business and have a lexicon of company knowledge.
They understand the brand, messaging, internal structure, and workflow processes. Bersin says that retraining and reskilling are key lynchpins in business AI deployment. “If there’s anything that’s going to hold you back in AI transformation,” Bersin said, “it’s not going to be the tech—it’s going to be this.”
Strategic Job Redesign
Like everything else you do in your business, you need a strategy for what the future roles at your business will require and how to train for them. Nexford University has a full list of jobs that are likely to be replaced between 2026 and 2030, and they include:
- Customer service
- Accounting/bookkeeping
- Sales
- Research and analysis
- Warehouse staff
Managers, directors, and CEOs have been declared safe, as have HR personnel, creative and strategic leaders, and IT/data analysts. Essentially, these are all the people who will be in command of the AI and the HR personnel tasked with hiring them. The safety of every job on this list is open to debate; the true outcome will only be clear in the coming years.
Why Customer Experience Still Requires Human Employees
The companies that will truly stand out in the near future are those that will still offer the human touch. If customers and prospects can connect with a human, even if AI and automation are involved, your business will outperform competitors.
Your job redesign strategy should ensure some employees remain in junior roles to provide this human touch. Even a fully automated customer service department requires a few seasoned, highly knowledgeable staff for oversight, ensuring the AI makes accurate decisions, and customers are satisfied.
For employees seeking new positions, reskilling opportunities should be made available. The change may motivate them and lead to a more engaged team overall.
Why Management and AI Upskilling is Essential
The white-collar workforce is undergoing a profound shift. As AI automates many low-level, repetitive tasks, the remaining roles will be elevated to two key areas: those that manage the new AI systems, and those that maintain the critical human connection with customers. In this new era, nearly every remaining employee is effectively becoming a manager—either of people or technology.
This means that reskilling initiatives must be strategically focused. Training should encompass both traditional management development and deep upskilling in the specific AI tools relevant to an employee's new role. This dual focus ensures your leadership can effectively oversee both human talent and powerful AI systems, turning technology into a true competitive advantage.
Of course, a strategic transformation may lead to difficult choices. Not all employees will want to retrain or upskill. In such cases, if the budget allows, companies should consider making these valuable employees freelance consultants. This move retains their vast institutional knowledge, ensuring it continues to benefit the company without forcing them into an unwanted career path.
Whatever your AI transformation looks like, it shouldn’t be at the expense of people. At Prodoscore, we believe in the power of people to drive business success using AI-powered insights to impact growth. Prodoscore data supports organizational chart redesign by providing clear workforce analytics that visualize how people work, what daily activity patterns look like, and where collaboration happens.
