“AI psychosis” in corporations: Box CEO on the wave of rash employee replacements with AI agents

Executives who decide that AI can replace your job often don't understand what you actually do. This is a paradox that Box founder Aaron Levie has pointed out — he calls this phenomenon "AI psychosis."

When Confidence Exceeds Knowledge

Levie observes a troubling trend among his peers: managers are rushing to integrate AI into production without understanding what tasks their teams actually perform. Instead of taking time to understand the details, which requires effort and deep engagement, executives are turning to AI-agents as a panacea. The result is predictable: incorrect replacements, loss of context, project failures. This isn't philosophical speculation. It's what's already happening in real corporations, where employees learn about decisions to replace them not directly, but from news on the internet.

ClickUp as a Trend Indicator

ClickUp recently laid off 22% of its workforce, citing AI-agents as the reason. This demonstrates the seriousness of the wave. But it's not an isolated case — according to TechCrunch, layoffs in the tech sector in 2026 have already nearly reached the volume of the entire 2025 year, despite the year just beginning. The statistics are both striking and alarming. The industry, which promised to create jobs and new opportunities, is moving in the opposite direction. Companies are cutting staff in waves under the guise of automation.

• The wave is happening in haste, without an integration strategy
• Companies are chasing cosmetic cost reductions
• Management lacks sufficient understanding of job details
• Decisions are often driven by investment cycles, not real necessity

Behind the Scenes of Decisions

Venture investors demand a path to profitability as soon as possible. AI on paper looks like a magic wand that will solve all problems. Company leaders look at peers who have already started deploying agents and fear falling behind. Instead of asking "which tasks can we safely automate?" they ask "how much will it cost us to eliminate people?" This is psychosis in the classical sense — a disconnect from reality in service of an idea. Managers look at stock price charts, not at how their team actually works. They know that AI can "write code" and "answer questions," but they don't understand why a human is needed for code review, team building, and planning.

What It Means in Practice

If you're a developer, designer, or analyst, it's worth knowing: the wave of replacements is often built on incomplete information about what you actually do. The best companies will likely be those that don't just implement AI, but understand its limitations and risks. For the companies themselves, "AI psychosis" could result in long-term damage: loss of top talent, declining product quality, organizational chaos. History shows that the cost of hasty restructuring often exceeds the modest salary savings that investors promised.