How to Conduct AI-Related Layoffs

What this is for

Your company has committed to significant AI investment over the next 12 to 24 months. Your CFO has been clear: it can't come at the cost of margin. Some part of the existing cost base has to give, and you've been pulled in to help figure out where.

A note before you start.

Your workforce is already tired. Almost every company has run at least one restructure since 2022, and many have run two or three. Change fatigue is the baseline you're working from, not the exception. Whatever trust used to exist between leadership and the people doing the work is mostly spent.

That matters because every choice in this document has a second-order effect on whether the people who remain after the cut will work for the company or just at it.

Seven sections, in order. Each one tells you what to do and why. Use it as a working document. Mark it up.