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Business Mayor
19-05-2025
- Business
- Business Mayor
IBM CEO: AI Replaced Hundreds of Human Resources Staff
Former employees at IBM were replaced with AI, the company's CEO confirmed earlier this week. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told The Wall Street Journal on Monday that the tech giant had tapped into AI to take over the work of several hundred human resources employees. However, IBM's workforce expanded instead of shrinking—the company used the resources freed up by the layoffs to hire more programmers and salespeople. 'Our total employment has actually gone up, because what [AI] does is it gives you more investment to put into other areas,' Krishna told The Journal. Krishna specified that those 'other areas' included software engineering, marketing, and sales or roles focused on 'critical thinking,' where employees 'face up or against other humans, as opposed to just doing rote process work.' Related: IBM Exec Says 7,800 Jobs (or Nearly 30% of Its Workforce) Could Be Replaced By AI IBM CTO Ji-eun Lee said earlier this year that IBM's AskHR agent had automated 94% of simple, routine human resources tasks, like vacation requests and pay statements. Meanwhile, IBM's AskIT agent reduced the number of calls and chats for the IT team by 70%. IBM saw a 'productivity improvement' of $3.5 billion over the past two years by using AI in more than 70 business areas, Lee stated. IBM did not disclose when the HR layoffs and subsequent hiring in other departments occurred. The company employed 270,300 workers globally as of its 2024 annual report. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna. Photographer: Christopher Pike/Bloomberg via Getty Images This week, IBM held its annual Think conference and introduced new products and services to grow its generative AI division, which has become a $6 billion business. The tools allow customers to build their own AI agents, capable of autonomously carrying out complex tasks, in under five minutes. The service is similar to offerings from Amazon, Nvidia, and Microsoft. Related: AI Agents Can Help Businesses Be '10 Times More Productive,' According to a Nvidia VP. Here's What They Are and How Much They Cost. Krishna has worked for IBM for over 34 years and stepped into the CEO role in 2020. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told Business Insider on Wednesday that Krishna was in the process of transforming IBM into an AI company. 'It's still the first inning in a nine-inning game,' Ives told the publication. Krishna isn't the first CEO to say the company has replaced people with AI. Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski stated last year that its AI chatbot did the work of 700 customer service agents and later announced that the company was undergoing a hiring freeze and filling in the gaps with AI. Meanwhile, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in September that the company's new AI agents could replace gig workers during busy seasons. Former employees at IBM were replaced with AI, the company's CEO confirmed earlier this week. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told The Wall Street Journal on Monday that the tech giant had tapped into AI to take over the work of several hundred human resources employees. However, IBM's workforce expanded instead of shrinking—the company used the resources freed up by the layoffs to hire more programmers and salespeople. 'Our total employment has actually gone up, because what [AI] does is it gives you more investment to put into other areas,' Krishna told The Journal. The rest of this article is locked. Join Entrepreneur + today for access.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
IBM (IBM) Let AI Handle HR -- and Ended Up Hiring More Humans
IBM (IBM, Financials) handed off repetitive HR work to AIand used the savings to hire more people where it counts: engineers, marketers, and sales staff. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 7 Warning Sign with NDAQ. CEO Arvind Krishna said IBM's AI tool, AskHR, now takes care of the small stuffapproving vacations, answering pay questionsthings that don't need a human touch. And while hundreds of HR jobs were phased out, IBM didn't shrink. It actually grew to 270,300 employees in 2024. The new hires? People who solve problems, think creatively, and work with customersstuff machines still can't do well. Another AI tool, AskIT, helped lighten the load on IBM's tech support team by 70%. Add it all up, and IBM says AI helped boost productivity by $3.5 billion over two years. At its Think conference, IBM showed off its next act: generative AI tools that let customers build their own AI agents in under five minutes. That part of the business is already pulling in $6 billion a year. IBM isn't alone. Klarna, Salesforce, and others are leaning on AI toobut the key difference here is how IBM is reinvesting in people, not just replacing them. See insider trades for IBM. Explore Peter Lynch chart. This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
