Career Intel with Dan | More Productive. More Stressed. Fewer Jobs.

AI Tools Are Raising Workloads, Not Reducing Them

New research from YuLife found that 26% of workers using AI tools report increased pressure, and 23% say their workloads have actually grown since the tools were introduced. Efficiency gains are largely being absorbed by higher quotas and new tasks - including managing the AI itself.

• Companies are capturing productivity gains as output increases, not as hours reduced

• "Phantom tasks" - the work of prompting, reviewing, and correcting AI - are adding invisible labor

• HR leaders are being warned that burnout risk rises when AI adoption isn't paired with deliberate job redesign

💡 AI is making workers more productive and more stressed at the same time. That combination is unsustainable without intentional role redesign — and most organizations aren't doing it yet.

Microsoft Goes Agentic: Copilot Cowork Arrives

Microsoft launched Copilot Cowork this week, shifting AI from side-panel assistant to background delegate - autonomously handling calendar triage, meeting prep, and document synthesis across the full M365 suite. The move is partially powered by Anthropic's Claude.

• Microsoft's new E7 licensing tier signals "AI-first" org design is becoming an enterprise standard

• Moves AI from a tool you invoke to a coworker that runs in the background

• Administrative professionals, project managers, and executive support roles are most directly affected

💡 When AI stops being something you open and starts being something that works while you're in a meeting, the definition of "support staff" changes permanently.

Morgan Stanley Cuts 2,500 — After a Record Revenue Year

Morgan Stanley laid off 3% of its global workforce across all three major divisions. Official reason: shifting priorities. Real reason, per internal sources: AI bots replacing back-office roles, particularly in wealth management where a ChatGPT-based program just launched.

• This follows record annual revenues - performance wasn't the issue

• Goldman Sachs expected to follow under its OneGS 3.0 AI efficiency initiative

• Wall Street WARN filings now at their highest level since 2016

💡 When profitable companies cut jobs and point to AI, the message to the broader labor market is revenue is no longer a buffer against restructuring.

Morgan Stanley TMT Conference: AI Productivity Is Now in the Macro Data

Morgan Stanley surveyed 1,000 executives across five countries and found a 4% average net workforce reduction over the past 12 months - directly attributed to AI. Economists from Harvard and the University of Chicago now agree: AI productivity gains are showing up in aggregate economic data, not just company case studies.

• Salesforce introduced "Agentic Work Units" as a new productivity metric - moving beyond token counts to measure what AI agents and their human managers actually deliver

• C.H. Robinson told conference attendees future jobs will involve managing AI agents, not running operations directly

• The dominant conference theme: workers who direct AI will thrive; workers who only use it will plateau

💡 The transition isn't theoretical anymore. It's registering in the numbers economists track.

The AI Layoff Trap: Half of These Cuts May Be Premature

Forrester Research found 55% of employers regret laying off workers for AI - because the capabilities they were betting on don't exist yet. Their prediction: half of AI-attributed layoffs will be quietly rehired, but offshore or at significantly lower wages.

• Only 16% of workers have high AI readiness today; projected to reach just 25% by year-end

• Only 23% of organizations offered any prompt engineering training in 2025 - most workers are self-teaching

• Gen Z has the highest AI readiness (22%) - yet entry-level positions are being eliminated, closing the exact on-ramp they need

💡 Companies are cutting for AI that isn't ready, then scrambling to replace the institutional knowledge they lost. The skills gap isn't just a worker problem - it's a management problem.

45,000 Tech Layoffs in March — 9,200 Explicitly Tied to AI

The pace of AI-attributed workforce reductions is accelerating. Block cut nearly half its workforce (4,000 jobs). WiseTech Global cut 2,000, saying traditional software development approaches are becoming obsolete. Ocado cut 1,000. Year-to-date, AI has been cited in 12,304 U.S. job cut announcements - 8% of all layoff plans so far in 2026.

• Roles most affected: software development, customer support, logistics, financial modeling, marketing, content moderation

• Through February, total announced cuts hit 156,742 - the fifth-highest January–February total since 2009

• Layoff announcements are at levels previously unseen outside a recession

💡 This isn't one industry's story. The cuts are spreading across sectors and into mid-level and senior roles, not just entry-level positions.

Federal Agencies Are Using AI to Absorb the Workforce They Lost

After a net loss of 264,000 federal employees under the current administration, agencies including GSA and EPA are turning to AI tools to maintain mission capacity with a fraction of the staff. OPM simultaneously released its first round of Tech Force candidates - a push to recruit early-career technologists back into government.

• GSA lost nearly 40% of its workforce and is now using AI to automate repetitive processes

• The federal government has hired ~123,000 while losing ~386,000 - hiring alone can't close that gap

• Early-career federal staffing is at its lowest in years, with workers under 30 now just 7.9% of the federal workforce

💡 The federal sector is running a live experiment in forced AI adoption. What works - and what breaks - will matter for every public-sector workforce system, including workforce boards.

Congress Is Starting to Build the Policy Framework

Two significant legislative moves this week. Senators Warner and Rounds introduced the bipartisan Economy of the Future Commission Act to study AI's workforce effects and produce legislative recommendations. Separately, a Senate coalition formally asked BLS and the Census Bureau to add AI-specific tracking to major labor surveys.

• WIOA overhaul hearings are centering AI training and micro-credentials as priorities

• At least 10 states are drafting AI hiring transparency laws modeled on NYC's Local Law 144

• The EU AI Act now classifies AI hiring tools as high-risk, requiring transparency and human oversight

💡 For WIOA-funded workforce development organizations - the policy signals are converging. AI programming expectations aren't coming someday. They're being written into legislation now.