- Companies with high ROI lay off at the same rate as companies with low ROI
- The best returns come from investing in people’s skills and jobs
- Net job creation can already take place in 2020-2029
Four in five organizations that have piloted or deployed autonomous AI agents have also reported workforce reductions, new Gartner research has claimed – but the research giant is failing to link layoffs and enterprise autonomy to meaningful improvements in ROI.
According to Gartner, companies with a high higher ROI from autonomous AI reduced staff at roughly the same rate as companies with poor or negative returns, suggesting that agent AI is not a major driver of job cuts, but rather other factors are at play.
As a result, analysts argue that cutting jobs may free up budget, but it does not create business value per se.
After all, AI and job cuts are not that closely related
In fact, it is clear from the analysis that companies that invest in the human workforce get the best returns, including those spent on employee skills, new operational roles, human oversight and management.
For Gartner, an optimal agent, independent enterprise is “human-enhanced” rather than “human-less”.
“Organizations that improve ROI are not those that eliminate the need for people, but those that augment them by aggressively investing more in skills, roles and operating models that allow people to guide and scale autonomous systems,” explained Eminent VP Analyst Helen Poitevin.
Looking ahead, projected AI agent spending is on the rise, expected to hit $206.5 billion in 2026 from $86.4 billion the previous year, before rising to $376.3 billion in 2027.
But even with strong investments in autonomous technology and continued layoffs, Gartner still expects net job creation in 2028-2029.
“Long term, autonomous business will create more work for people, not less,” Poitevin concluded.
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