CEOs blame AI for layoffs, but an MIT professor says it fits a long pattern to find a cover story

MIT professor Paul Osterman argues that while some companies cite AI as justification for layoffs, this represents a continuation of decades-long corporate practice rather than a genuine technological imperative—companies are using "AI washing" to rebrand workforce reductions as innovation-driven restructuring and present what would typically be negative news as necessary adaptation. Major tech companies like Wix, Block, and Snap have adopted similar framing around becoming "smaller and flatter organizations," language that Osterman says executives have used for 20 years to justify cost-cutting, with AI now providing a convenient veneer of technological inevitability to what are ultimately discretionary business decisions.

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