The CEO of International Business Machines Corp. expects to pause the hiring of thousands of people for positions that could be replaced by artificial intelligence in the coming years, according to a new report.
Bloomberg News reported Monday that Chief Executive Arvind Krishna said in an interview that hiring will be slowed or suspended for non-customer-facing roles, such as human resources, which make up about 26,000 jobs at IBM.
“I could easily see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period,” he told Bloomberg. That would equal nearly 8,000 jobs eliminated.
In February, Krishna told the Financial Times that AI will likely displace “clerical white-collar work,” and last month, he touted how IBM’s AI could improve efficiency and reduce costs.
“In digital labor, we are helping finance, accounting, and HR teams save thousands of hours by automating what used to belabor intensive data-entry tasks,” Krishna said on the company’s earnings call April 19. “These productivity initiatives free up spending for reinvestment and contribute to margin expansion.”
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