Business Insider just laid off 21% of its staff—and AI was a major factor.
In a company-wide memo, CEO Barbara Peng made it crystal clear: AI was central to their strategic pivot. More than 70% of Business Insider employees are already using Enterprise ChatGPT regularly. The goal? Full adoption. Peng framed the layoffs not as an unfortunate byproduct of AI usage, but as part of a broader vision to make the company leaner, faster, and more future-proof.
The announcement sparked immediate backlash. The Insider Union called the AI-forward messaging "tone-deaf," arguing that no technology can replace real journalists. But the tension isn’t just philosophical. It’s economic.
On Episode 152 of The Artificial Intelligence Show, I spoke to Marketing AI Institute founder and CEO Paul Roetzer about what we can learn from Business Insider's moves, and from a number of other developments this week related to AI's impact on jobs.
Welcome to the AI-Efficiency Era
There’s a reason why Peng (and other CEOs) believe they can do more with less. The numbers are starting to back them up. PwC’s latest Global AI Jobs Barometer report analyzed nearly a billion job ads and found that industries most exposed to AI saw revenue per employee grow three times faster than those less exposed to AI since ChatGPT’s release in late 2022.
In parallel, workers with AI fluency now earn a 56% wage premium, according to the report—a 25% increase from last year. This isn’t hype. This is the beginning of a clear bifurcation in the labor market: those who can wield AI, and those who are being replaced by it.
And this divergence is happening fast. Researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research modeled a scenario in which AI could improve labor productivity more than 3X. But that same model predicted a 23% drop in employment as machines outperform humans on complex tasks.
The seven-month rule, a concept introduced by Beth Barnes and her team at Model Evaluation and Threat Research, suggests why: AI models are doubling their ability to handle long-horizon tasks every seven months. That means what takes a human an hour today could be done by AI in 30 minutes tomorrow—and 15 minutes seven months after that.
Business Insider’s pivot isn’t unique to media companies. The consulting industry is next. In a report from (of all places) Business Insider, former PwC partner Alan Paton warned that AI will likely eliminate up to 50% of roles in audit, tax, and advisory over the next five years. Mid-sized firms are already capitalizing, using AI to close the talent and tooling gaps that previously separated them from the Big Four.
AI isn't just cheaper. It's increasingly better at structured, repetitive, or data-heavy tasks. And that’s creating a seismic shift not just in who gets hired—but how work gets done.
It's also changing what companies demand from the people they do hire and retain.
Zapier CEO Wade Foster may have put it best, says Roetzer:
AI fluency at the company is no longer optional, he wrote in a recent post. Zapier now assesses job candidates across four tiers—from "Unacceptable" (resistant to AI) to "Transformative" (reimagining strategy through AI).
Companies aren’t just looking for people who can use tools like ChatGPT. They’re designing job descriptions, team workflows, and entire business models around AI-augmented productivity.
What You Can Control
If there’s a silver lining, it’s this: you still likely have time to prepare yourself to be an AI-forward professional.
"I think there is a near-term opportunity for people to go figure this stuff out and accelerate your own career growth," says Roetzer.
"I think a lot of AI-forward organizations are going to look at their employees and be willing to pay a premium because of how productive they can be, how creative, how innovative they can be [with AI]."
While there are no guarantees, says Roetzer, embracing AI gives you the greatest chance to figure out what happens next in your your job and your industry.
Which means, ultimately, choice is yours:
Either stand still, or accelerate your AI literacy and capabilities.
Mike Kaput
As Chief Content Officer, Mike Kaput uses content marketing, marketing strategy, and marketing technology to grow and scale traffic, leads, and revenue for Marketing AI Institute. Mike is the co-author of Marketing Artificial Intelligence: AI, Marketing and the Future of Business (Matt Holt Books, 2022). See Mike's full bio.