My Boss Fired 5 People to Exchange Them for AI—Then Reality Hit Hard

We recently received a letter from a reader whose workplace underwent a bold experiment with artificial intelligence. What started as a confident push toward “optimization” quickly turned into a lesson no one in the office will forget.

Sometimes innovation promises efficiency—but forgets the human factor.

Here’s the letter about an AI decision that changed everything.

Hi Bright Side,

Our new department head, Greg, was obsessed with “optimization.” He spent three months bragging about how AI could do 90% of our marketing and customer support. One Monday, he called a meeting and fired five of our most veteran staff members. He didn’t offer a handshake or a thank you—just a cold speech.

I survived the cut, but I had to watch as five lives were upended in an afternoon. Greg replaced them with a suite of high-end AI tools.

For the first week, he was smug. He showed us charts of how “productivity” had tripled. He even bought himself a celebratory Rolex, posting it on LinkedIn with the caption: “Innovate or evaporate. The era of the human bottleneck is over.”

But by the third week, the “reality” started to hit, and it hit like a freight train.

It started with the “Loyalty Leak.” Our oldest clients, people who had been with us for twenty years, started canceling their contracts. Why? Because they didn’t want “optimized” email templates; they wanted the five veterans who knew their kids’ names and their business histories.

The AI was perfect at grammar, but it was “blind” to nuance. It sent a cheerful, automated “upsell” email to a client on the same day they had announced their company was filing for bankruptcy.

The final blow came when the AI “hallucinated” a massive discount code on our main site. Because the humans who used to “sanity-check” the output were gone, the code went live. We lost $200,000 in sales in six hours.

Greg was fired, and his Rolex went with him. The board realized that while AI is a great tool, but it’s a disastrous worker.

Now, the company is in a desperate scramble to re-hire three of the veterans they tossed aside. The tables have turned: the “old-timers” are negotiating for massive salary hikes, and the company is actually paying up.

Watching leadership suddenly “find” the money they claimed didn’t exist was my wake-up call. I’m currently scheduling a meeting with the new director—if they have the budget to pay a premium to fix an AI’s mess, they definitely have the budget to finally give me my raise.

I hope I can share how this story turns out for me in the future.

A.

Dear A.,

Thank you for sharing your story with us. What you witnessed wasn’t just a management decision — it was a real-time lesson about the limits of automation and the value of human experience. It’s never easy to watch colleagues lose their jobs, especially when the decision feels cold or overly confident.

Your letter highlights something many companies are still learning: AI can enhance work, but it can’t replace relationships, judgment, and lived experience. Clients don’t stay loyal to software — they stay loyal to people who understand them.

What Research Says About Generative AI and Workplace Burnout.

The debate around generative AI in the workplace isn’t just about job loss — it’s also about how AI changes daily work habits.

An eight-month study conducted by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business examined how generative AI tools affected employees at a U.S.-based tech company with around 200 staff members. The results were surprising.

Instead of reducing workload, AI often made work more intense.

According to the researchers, employees began multitasking more, taking on responsibilities outside their original roles, and working longer hours — often without being directly instructed to do so. As AI tools became available, workers experimented with them during meetings, collaborated differently, and even absorbed tasks that previously might have required additional hires.

What initially felt like harmless experimentation gradually led to what researchers described as “workload creep.” Employees reported that their responsibilities quietly expanded. Over time, this shift contributed to cognitive fatigue, burnout, and decision-making strain.

The study also found that many employees used AI tools during breaks — sending prompts before meetings or lunch so tasks could continue running. While this seemed efficient, it reduced natural pauses in the workday and increased continuous mental engagement.

Even leaders in the AI industry acknowledge this acceleration effect. In a 2025 interview, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman noted that AI speeds up idea generation and experimentation, which can make work feel faster and more intense.

The takeaway? Artificial intelligence can boost productivity, but without clear boundaries and thoughtful management, it may also increase employee stress and workload. As companies integrate automation and generative AI tools, balancing efficiency with sustainable work practices becomes essential.

AI may work faster, but humans still need space to breathe.

12 Stories That Show Kindness Is the Quiet Strength Our World Needs