The issue isn’t whether CEOs should use AI. The issue is whether they can afford not to

When Block CEO Jack Dorsey announced plans to cut roughly 4,000 jobs while expanding the company’s use of artificial intelligence, critics accused him of putting profits ahead of people and abandoning workers in favour of machines.

They’re wrong.

A CEO’s job is not to protect jobs. It’s to protect the company’s future. If artificial intelligence allows fewer employees to produce the same results, executives have a responsibility to use it.

That isn’t corporate greed. It’s business.

A CEO’s primary responsibility is to ensure the long-term success of the company. That responsibility includes improving productivity, reducing unnecessary costs and staying competitive. If AI helps achieve those goals, executives have an obligation to consider it.

That may sound harsh, but it reflects how business works.

For decades, companies relied on large numbers of employees to gather information, draft reports, manage projects, and handle administrative workflows. Many of these jobs were essential because there was no practical alternative.

Today, there is.

Artificial intelligence can now summarize documents, analyze data, generate marketing content, draft reports and automate routine workflows in seconds. Tasks that once required multiple employees can increasingly be handled by a much smaller team supported by technology.

When three people using AI can produce the same output as 10 people working without it, maintaining the larger workforce becomes difficult to justify.

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna has openly stated that AI will reduce the need for some back-office functions. Microsoft, Google and other major employers have made significant investments in AI while simultaneously reducing headcount in selected areas. These companies are not unique. They’re responding to the same economic reality facing organizations across every sector.

Businesses don’t compete by maintaining inefficiency. They compete by producing better results at lower cost.

Keeping unnecessary positions may feel compassionate, but it doesn’t make a company stronger. In competitive markets, organizations that refuse to improve productivity eventually lose ground to those that do.

That reality leads to a second question: What does AI mean for workers?

The answer is straightforward. Workers whose jobs consist primarily of routine tasks face the greatest risk.

The jobs most vulnerable to automation tend to share common characteristics. They are repetitive, rules-based and predictable. If your work consists primarily of following established procedures, completing standardized reports or processing information according to a fixed set of instructions, AI will eventually become a competitor.

That doesn’t mean work is disappearing. It means the nature of work is changing.

Technology has been changing the nature of work for centuries. The printing press, for example, reduced demand for scribes. Mechanized farming reduced the need for agricultural labour. Computers eliminated countless clerical jobs. The internet transformed entire industries.

The difference today is the speed.

Previous technological shifts unfolded over decades. AI is advancing in months.

Many employees still assume their education, experience or job title provides security. Increasingly, it doesn’t. What matters is whether the value you create exceeds what technology can provide at a lower cost.

That’s an uncomfortable reality, but ignoring it won’t change it.

Employers still need people who can exercise judgment, build relationships, solve complex problems, make decisions under uncertainty and think creatively. Those capabilities remain difficult to automate.

Workers are repeatedly told to pursue credentials and accumulate experience. Increasingly, neither guarantees security. What matters is whether your skills complement technology or compete directly against it.

The future belongs to people who learn how to work with AI, not those who spend their energy wishing it would disappear.

It’s easy to criticize CEOs for eliminating jobs. It’s harder to acknowledge that the economic incentives driving AI adoption are overwhelming. Organizations that successfully use AI will operate faster and more efficiently than those that don’t. Competitors will have little choice but to follow.

That isn’t greed. It’s competition.

The CEO’s responsibility is to improve performance, protect competitiveness and create value. The worker’s responsibility is to remain valuable in a changing market.

The real question is whether workers are preparing for a labour market where routine work becomes increasingly automated.

Technology has never stopped advancing because people feared change.

AI won’t be the exception.

The workers who thrive won’t be those demanding that businesses preserve outdated roles. They’ll be the ones who recognize what is changing and adapt before the market forces them to.

Block’s layoffs won’t be the last AI-driven job cuts. They won’t even be the largest. As AI improves, more executives will make the same decision Jack Dorsey made. Not because they’re heartless, but because they’re doing the job shareholders hired them to do.

The question isn’t whether that future is coming. The question is whether workers will be ready when it arrives.

Nick Kossovan, a syndicated columnist and career expert with over 20 years of experience in the corporate hiring landscape,  decodes the psychological impact of AI and social media, helping us make sense of our evolving digital landscape.