“Reductions may create budgetary space, but they don’t create efficiency”: Gartner warns that companies that rely on layoffs to free up space for AI could be trapped in the long term

• Companies with high ROI lay off workers at the same rate as companies with low ROI.
• The best returns come from investing in people skills and jobs
• Net job creation could take place as early as 2020-2029

Four out of five organizations that piloted or deployed autonomous AI agents also reported workforce reductions, according to a new study from Gartner. However, the search giant fails to link layoffs and business autonomy to meaningful improvements in ROI.

According to Gartner, companies with higher ROI from autonomous AI have reduced their workforce at about the same rate as companies with low or negative returns, implying that agentic AI is not a key driver of job cuts, but that other factors are at play.