🌏 The age of AI layoffs

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ByQuartz Staff

PublishedYesterday

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Image for article titled 🌏 The age of AI layoffs — Image: Kohji Asakawa

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Confidence on credit. Consumer confidence finally has risen after prolonged tariff fears, but the respite might be temporary as the levies still loom large.

Not-so-human resources

When Simplice Fosso opened Slack and saw a green checkmark next to his team’s name, it wasn’t a win, it was a pink slip. His job in security ops had been handed off to a machine. And Fosso isn’t alone. AI is increasingly responsible for layoffs.

While some layoffs make headlines (Microsoft trimming engineers, Duolingo letting bilingual writers go), many happen in quieter corners: deleted calendar invites, silent Slack threads, and supervisors who don’t even know you’re about to be let go.

From AI threat detection to auto-generated lesson plans and finance workflows, jobs once considered bulletproof are vanishing — not with a bang, but with a system update. Automation, once hailed as the future of productivity, is sweeping through office buildings, turning salaried roles into system prompts.

The result is a new kind of fear, one where even the smartest people in the room are replaceable. The future isn’t just automated. It’s ambiguous. Quartz’s Catherine Baab has more on the workforce’s auto correction.

Silicon, surged

Nvidia has become Wall Street’s favorite AI player, and this week, it’s center stage again. The $3.3 trillion chipmaker reports earnings Wednesday, and Wall Street is bracing for a blockbuster: Analysts expect a 66% revenue jump and a 44% boost in profits year-over-year.

Nvidia has built its reputation on beating expectations — and doing so in style. Investors want proof that the company isn’t just riding the AI wave but helping build the ocean floor. That means more than strong GPU sales. It means traction in software, networking, and full-stack AI infrastructure.

CEO Jensen Huang’s vision is for Nvidia to become not just a chipmaker, but the foundation of the entire AI economy — a role it’s leaning into with its Blackwell chips, growing cloud partnerships, and efforts to broaden its platform strategy.

Of course, Nvidia doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Rivals are closing in, AI demand is evolving, and U.S.-China export rules have cut deep into one of the company’s biggest markets. Wednesday’s report won’t just be about the last quarter; it’ll be a read on the AI boom itself. Quartz’s Shannon Carroll has more on whether Nvidia can keep out-chipping the hype.