Mass layoffs begin in professions vulnerable to AI in the US

For the second year in a row, the US is experiencing significant layoffs in professions considered vulnerable to artificial intelligence. Customer service representatives, secretaries, and certain categories of salespeople are among the hardest hit.

Who Lost Their Jobs

Layoffs are uneven. Customer service representatives are leaving the fastest. These are professionals who answer incoming calls, emails and chats, solve standard problems, and search for information in databases. Modern AI systems can do exactly the same thing, often faster and cheaper. Secretarial staff lose positions the faster their work is routine. Letter preparation, meeting organization, calendar management, document archiving — all of this is already being taken over by AI assistants. Salespeople lose positions more slowly than customer service, but the trend is clearly downward. Initial client contact, preliminary information, and even basic product demonstrations are already being handled by AI systems.

• Processing incoming calls and chats
• Preparing business letters and documents
• Answering frequently asked questions
• Organizing meetings and managing calendars
• Initial qualification of potential clients

Why AI Displaces Faster

AI improves exponentially. Three years ago, you could argue: the system doesn't understand context, doesn't catch nuances, makes errors. Today these arguments are weakening. Modern models handle most routine tasks better than the average employee. Company economics are changing. Employee salary is a fixed expense item, plus taxes, plus management. An AI service subscription is a variable expense, with no obligations, and is scalable. At a certain volume of work, AI becomes more profitable. The third factor is competition. If your company hires people for routine tasks while your competitor has implemented AI, you'll lose on price. This creates pressure even on conservative companies.

What Happens Next

This is not an American phenomenon. The same layoffs are visible in Europe, in Asia, though the statistics are less clear. The wave will reach more complex roles when AI learns to optimize analytics, prototyping, and design. Who loses their job today? These are people whose careers were built on performing standardized tasks. Primary protection from displacement is either moving into higher-level functions (strategy, relationship management) or learning to work with AI as a tool, integrating it into your workflow.

We are not seeing the end of professions, but the end of routine in professions.

Such retraining requires time and education. Companies must invest in retraining. People must be more flexible. Society must prepare for large-scale retraining in new segments.

What This Means

Layoffs are not simply the loss of jobs, they are a signal of the economy's transition to a new level of automation. Professions won't disappear, they will change. Customer service will remain, but it will be exception management, not routine processing. If you are in one of these professions, plan for role evolution now. If you hire people, prepare for the fact that routine labor costs will drop sharply, but demand will grow for people who can manage this routine and verify quality.