Examples of Job Displacement Due to AI: The Unbundling of a Workforce

How many people have lost their jobs to AI? It's no longer a hypothetical question. In 2025 alone, technology companies have laid off tens of thousands of employees, with many of these cuts directly linked to a strategic pivot toward artificial intelligence. This isn't a distant forecast; it's a present-day reality. But to truly understand the tectonic shifts occurring in our labor market, we must look beyond simple layoff numbers. We are witnessing what author J.Y. Sterling calls "The Great Unbundling"—the systematic dismantling of the traditional human skillset, a process that is redefining the very value of a human worker.

For millennia, the strength of Homo sapiens was our bundled set of capabilities. A single individual could possess analytical intelligence, creative passion, and the physical dexterity to execute a task. This bundle was the engine of our economy. As Sterling argues in his book, "The Great Unbundling: How Artificial Intelligence is Redefining the Value of a Human Being," AI represents the definitive end of that era. It isolates each human function—cognition, creativity, analysis, communication—and improves it beyond our biological limits, making the original human package increasingly uncompetitive.

This article provides a clear-eyed look at the real-world examples of job displacement due to AI.

• For the AI-Curious Professional, it offers a grounded understanding of which sectors are being impacted now and how to prepare for the future.
• For the Philosophical Inquirer, it connects these trends to the profound questions about human value and purpose in an increasingly automated world.
• For the Aspiring AI Ethicist, it delivers substantiated data and a critical framework for analyzing the societal consequences of this transformation.

The Unbundling Engine: How is AI Causing Job Displacement?

The core driver of the current wave of job displacement isn't just automation; it's unbundling. Previously, a company hiring a graphic designer wasn't just paying for the ability to use design software. They were hiring a bundle: the designer's creative ideation, their understanding of brand tone, their ability to interpret a vague brief, and their technical execution skills.

Generative AI unbundles these skills. A tool like Midjourney can handle the technical execution of creating an image, separating it from the human's creative spark. A large language model can draft marketing copy, unbundling the act of writing from the strategic understanding of a campaign. This is artificial intelligence and job displacement in action: capitalism, the engine of this unbundling, relentlessly seeks efficiency. If it can acquire the skill without hiring the entire bundled human, it will.

This process explains why the impact is being felt so quickly. A 2023 report from Goldman Sachs projected that generative AI could expose the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs to automation. While this doesn't equate to 300 million layoffs overnight, it signals that core tasks within a vast number of roles are now automatable, putting downward pressure on the necessity of the human "bundle."

Quantifying the Shift: How Many People Have Lost Their Jobs to AI?

Pinpointing an exact figure for jobs lost exclusively to AI is challenging, as companies often cite broader "restructuring." However, the trend is clear and accelerating.

• Corporate Layoffs: According to reporting from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, U.S.-based companies announced plans to cut over 34,000 jobs in May 2024, with many explicitly mentioning AI as a factor in their strategic shifts. Tech companies like Microsoft and IBM have laid off thousands in 2025, openly stating a pivot to reinvest savings into AI development and hire for new roles with AI-specific skills.
• Hiring Freezes: The World Economic Forum's "Future of Jobs Report 2025" reveals that 41% of employers worldwide intend to reduce their workforce in the next five years due to AI automation. This isn't just about layoffs; it's about roles that will cease to exist. Big Tech companies, for instance, reduced new graduate hiring by a staggering 25% in 2024 compared to the previous year, a direct reflection of entry-level tasks being automated.
• The Klarna Example: Perhaps the most direct case study comes from the fintech firm Klarna. The company announced its AI assistant is now doing the work of 700 full-time customer service agents, handling two-thirds of all customer service chats. The AI is more efficient, operates 24/7, and is projected to drive a $40 million profit improvement.

These numbers confirm that AI causing job displacement is not a future problem; it is a current, measurable phenomenon.

Real-World Examples of Job Displacement Due to AI

The unbundling process is not confined to a single industry. It is a cross-sector tidal wave, impacting roles once considered safe from automation.

Creative, Content, and Communication Roles

For years, creative work was seen as the last bastion against automation. That wall has been breached.

• Writers and Translators: Companies are now leveraging AI to generate marketing copy, social media updates, and internal communications. This has led to a reduction in freelance budgets and layoffs of in-house content teams. In early 2024, the tech company Duolingo offboarded a percentage of its contract translators, citing AI's ability to do the work.
• Graphic Designers: AI image generators can now produce high-quality, commercially viable art in seconds. This has directly impacted roles focused on producing high volumes of graphical content for social media, advertising, and websites.
• Customer Service Representatives: As seen with Klarna, this is a frontline of displacement. Chatbots and AI voice agents can handle a massive volume of inquiries, from simple order tracking to more complex troubleshooting. Servion Global Solutions predicts that 95% of all customer interactions will be powered by AI by 2025.

Tech and Programming Roles

In a deeply ironic turn, the industry creating the disruption is now feeling its effects.

• Coders and Software Developers: Tools like GitHub Copilot, which is now writing a significant portion of new code on the platform, are unbundling the act of writing code from the architectural and problem-solving aspects of software engineering. While this augments senior developers, it displaces the need for many entry-level coding roles focused on routine tasks.
• Data Entry and Analysis: Roles that involve collecting, processing, and performing basic analysis on data are highly susceptible. AI algorithms can perform these tasks faster and with fewer errors. The World Economic Forum identifies Data Entry Clerks as one of the fastest-declining roles.

Administrative and Legal Support

These white-collar roles, built on process and documentation, are prime for unbundling.

• Paralegals and Legal Assistants: AI can now sift through thousands of legal documents in minutes, performing discovery, summarizing case law, and drafting standard contracts. This unbundles the research and documentation skill from the strategic legal mind.
• Administrative and Executive Assistants: Tasks like scheduling, booking travel, and managing expenses are increasingly being handed off to AI-powered assistants, reducing the need for one-to-one human support.

The Philosophical Challenge of Unbundled Labor

The displacement of jobs is more than an economic disruption; it is a philosophical one. For centuries, our societies have been built on the premise that a human being's economic value is tied to their bundled capabilities. We have built systems of education, career progression, and social contribution around this model.

"The Great Unbundling," as detailed by J.Y. Sterling, forces a profound question: What is the economic value of a human when our core competitive advantage—the integrated bundle of intelligence, creativity, and execution—is rendered obsolete?

This isn't just a challenge for the individuals whose jobs are displaced. It is a challenge to the foundations of humanism, which places the individual at the center of meaning and value. If AI can solve problems without consciousness and create art without feeling, we must confront a world where human experience is no longer a prerequisite for "valuable" output. This leads directly to the difficult but necessary conversations around policies like Universal Basic Income (UBI), which Sterling posits is not a mere policy choice but a potential civilizational necessity in a world of unbundled labor.

The Counter-Current: Navigating Displacement with "The Great Re-bundling"

Acknowledging the inevitability of unbundling is not a call for despair. It is a call for a conscious human response: The Great Re-bundling. This is the intentional effort to create new value by re-bundling our capabilities in ways that AI cannot easily replicate.

For Professionals: Cultivating the "Un-automatable"

The path forward lies in doubling down on the skills that remain uniquely human.

• Complex Strategy & Critical Thinking: AI can analyze data, but humans are still superior at setting the strategic direction, asking the right questions, and navigating ambiguous, multi-faceted problems.
• Deep Empathy & Human Connection: Leadership, mentorship, and building genuine client relationships require an emotional intelligence that is, for now, far beyond the reach of algorithms.
• Ethical Judgment & Moral Reasoning: As AI systems become more powerful, the need for human oversight, ethical governance, and moral decision-making becomes paramount.

For Businesses: Human-AI Collaboration

The smartest companies will not pursue a strategy of pure replacement. They will focus on augmentation, creating collaborative models where AI handles the routine, unbundled tasks, freeing up human workers to focus on higher-order activities. The goal is not a smaller workforce but a more valuable one, where technology amplifies human potential rather than making it redundant.

For Society: A New Social Contract

The scale of AI and job displacement will force a political and social reckoning. The conversation around UBI, reskilling initiatives on a national scale, and new educational models focused on creativity and critical thinking must move from the fringes to the center of public policy.

The Great Unbundling is here. The examples of job displacement due to AI are mounting daily. Resisting this tide is futile. The urgent task for every individual, business, and society is to understand the nature of this change and begin the critical work of re-bundling our skills, our value, and our purpose for the automated age.

To explore these concepts in greater depth and understand the full framework for navigating this new era, read J.Y. Sterling's seminal work, The Great Unbundling: How Artificial Intelligence is Redefining the Value of a Human Being. Sign up for our newsletter to receive ongoing analysis and insights into the unbundling world.