AI will replace tasks, but not people: startup CEOs' view

While the public discourse about artificial intelligence increasingly slides toward apocalyptic scenarios of mass layoffs, the founders of companies directly creating these technologies hold a far more measured position. At the Web Summit Qatar conference, the heads of startups Read AI and Lucidya told TechCrunch that AI will displace specific tasks, not living employees. This is not merely optimistic PR — behind such a view lies an understanding of how AI-tool implementation actually works in business processes.

Fear that machines will take people's places is not new: it accompanies every major technological wave — from industrial automation to the spread of personal computers. Yet economic history repeatedly demonstrates the same scenario: technologies change employment structure, but do not eliminate the need for human labor as such. The current wave of generative AI is unfolding faster than previous ones, which fuels anxiety. This is precisely why the words of people who see from inside how companies actually use AI deserve special attention.

Read AI analyzes meetings, calls, and correspondence, transforming unstructured corporate communication into structured data and insights. Lucidya specializes in customer experience analytics for the Arabic-speaking market — a niche where understanding cultural and linguistic context is critical. Both products automate quite specific, measurable tasks: creating meeting summaries, processing feedback, tracking message sentiment. And both CEOs observe the same effect among their clients: time is freed up, but headcount does not shrink.

The difference between "replacing a task" and "replacing an employee" may seem like a linguistic game, but in reality it is a fundamental distinction in transformation logic. When an accountant stops manually reconciling spreadsheets because an algorithm does it, he does not become redundant — he switches to interpreting results, handling exceptions, communicating with colleagues. The routine part of his function is automated, but the function as a whole becomes more complex and requires more judgment, not less. This is precisely the mechanism both startup leaders insist on: AI handles execution, leaving humans thinking and decision-making.

This position is also supported by broader labor market data. Companies that actively implement AI tools more often report productivity gains than mass layoffs. McKinsey, Accenture, and several other consulting giants record a shift in work roles, not their disappearance. Meanwhile, positions most vulnerable are truly those consisting almost exclusively of reproducible, templated operations. But even here we are talking more about reconceiving the role than abolishing it — provided that companies and workers themselves have the will and resources for this reconception.

It is important to understand the context in which these statements are made. Web Summit Qatar is a platform where startups, investors, and corporations build a narrative around their products. Founders of AI companies are objectively interested in reducing public resistance to the technology. This does not make their words false, but it requires keeping this context in mind. The true test of the thesis "AI replaces tasks, not people" does not occur on conference panels, but in how companies manage the transition period: do they invest in retraining, do they restructure processes with human factors in mind, or do they simply cut payroll under the guise of technological progress?

Nevertheless, the very framework that the CEOs of Read AI and Lucidya propose is productive. Instead of the binary question "AI or people?" it asks a more useful question: which specific tasks should be handed to machines, and what should humans do with the freed resource? The answer to it is not technical, but managerial and cultural. And it is precisely on how business, policymakers, and workers answer it in the coming years that will depend whether the current wave of AI turns out to be a story about liberating human potential or simply another tool for cost optimization.