A CEO writes about AI23 Dec 2025 06:21
I am the CEO of a $6.7 billion fintech company. Last year I replaced 700 customer service workers with AI. I called it "the future of work." The future arrived. It's worse. In 2023, we stopped hiring entirely. I announced it on stage. People applauded. Applause is how you know you've made a mistake. We partnered with OpenAI. I said "AI can already do all of the jobs that we, as humans, do." I said this publicly. Into a microphone. With my whole chest. We saved $10 million. I put that in the press release. Press releases are how you celebrate before the consequences arrive. Our employee count went from 5,500 to 3,400. I called it "efficiency." Efficiency is when you fire people and the stock goes up. For a while. The AI handled customer complaints. Customers complained about the AI. It couldn't do nuance. It couldn't do empathy. It couldn't do angry customers yelling about missed payments at 2 AM. Turns out those are the only customers who call. I started getting emails. From customers. About the AI. The AI was hallucinating payment plans that don't exist. It told one customer their refund was "processing in the astral realm." I don't know what that means. Neither did the customer. They posted it on Twitter. It went viral. Not the good kind of viral. The kind where Congress starts asking questions. My VP of Customer Experience scheduled a meeting. She asked if we could "reintroduce human elements." Human elements means people. People I fired. I said we'd "explore hybrid solutions." Hybrid solutions means admitting we were wrong. Without using the word "wrong." I did an interview with Bloomberg. I said "there will always be a human if you want." A human if you want. Like it's a topping. Like empathy is extra cheese. I announced a new hiring initiative. We're bringing back customer service workers. But not as employees. As gig workers. From home. No benefits. No stability. Like Uber. But for apologizing. I called it "flexible human infrastructure." That's not a real thing. But it sounds like one. The workers we fired are now contractors. Doing the same job. For less money. With no healthcare. I called it "the evolution of the customer experience." Evolution means we broke something and fixed it worse. But the word sounds forward-thinking. We spent $10 million to save $10 million. And ended up with angry customers, viral tweets, and a gig economy call center. I'm doing a keynote at Davos next month. The topic is "AI Transformation: Lessons in Leadership." I haven't learned any lessons. But I have learned to call them lessons. That's the same thing. In business.
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