Across Michigan, companies are citing artificial intelligence as a driver behind workforce reductions — from a Grand Rapids insurance and fintech giant cutting thousands of jobs to a broader wave of technology sector layoffs nationally that experts say is only partly about AI itself.
Some experts and economists say AI as it exists today can replace functions of jobs, but the technology isn’t ready to take humans’ jobs at scale. Citing AI, however, can prod companies to look ahead of the curve when, in reality, reasons for headcount reductions often remain the same as ever: lower sales, strategy change-ups, previous over-hiring and outsourcing. The practice has become known as “AI washing.”
“It is happening. It is very difficult to assess how prevalent it is,” said Nigel Melville, associate professor of technology and operations at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. “What gives me confidence is learning about companies where it really seems like there are other reasons or multiple reasons clearly on a public record, but then the only reason given or communicated widely and relentlessly is because of AI.”
Acrisure, the Grand Rapids-based fintech and insurance firm, said in May it would cut 2,250 jobs over the next year, about 11% of its workforce, in phases running through 2027. The company, with annual revenue S&P Global estimates to exceed $5 billion, said the reductions would primarily affect U.S.-based employees.
Two former Acrisure employees who declined to be identified said they were laid off in previous job cuts and their positions were offshored outside of the United States. One worked for the company for two years as a business services specialist and was let go in February 2025; the other, a business services employee who worked for Acrisure for five years, was laid off in January this year.
Justin Sedlecky, 42, of Grand Rapids spent 22 months in accounting at Acrisure before resigning in September 2024. He said that during his time with the company, certain employees were urged by management to incorporate AI into their work.
“They would hint here and there about AI development … they would usually talk about it with their sales roles,” he said. “I was in accounting, not sales, but we’d sometimes get communications about how salespeople are being more and more encouraged to use the AI tools to make a more focused search for prospects.”
That meant the writing was on the wall that job cuts were coming, said Sedlecky, who’s looking for an entry-level sales position in the tech sector.
“I’m not surprised that it happened,” he said. “They never said anything official, but you knew it was coming if you’re an intelligent person and you see what’s going on around you in the news.”
In response to a request for comment on the statements from the laid-off employees, Acrisure spokesperson Lynsey Elve wrote: “Advances in automation, AI and digital platforms are essential for every leading company, and the implementation of these technologies is an important component to providing the exceptional solutions that our clients expect and demand. Beyond that, it’s our policy not to comment on our specific day-to-day operations, including proprietary information.”
A report from independent journalist Chris Brunet cited comments on social media sites, including Reddit and Facebook, from Acrisure employees saying they trained their replacements in Poland and Colombia. In a letter to employees issued at the time of the layoff announcement, CEO and co-founder Greg Williams pointed to AI advancements as the reason for the recent restructuring.
“Advances in technology, AI, and digital platforms are fundamentally changing how businesses operate, how clients expect to be served, and how value is created,” Williams wrote. “We made our first scaled AI investment in 2020, and as other leading organizations accelerate in this direction, we must continue to push the pace.”
The company already had warned in October of 400 layoffs at the start of 2026, with most of the affected positions in accounting. It also cited advancements in artificial intelligence and other technology for those cuts.
“We need to increase revenue growth through greater connectivity, tighter alignment, and continued investment in technology,” Williams wrote. “This next chapter requires us to continue advancing Acrisure as a technology-enabled company. Our future is not merely about doing the same work in a different structure. It’s about changing how work gets done.”
Williams promised comprehensive severance, extended benefits “for a period of time” and “dedicated outplacement support” for affected employees.
“This decision affects colleagues who have contributed meaningfully to building Acrisure, and was not taken lightly,” he wrote. “It was driven by how work must evolve as we build the company we need for the future.”
Acrisure isn’t the only company in Michigan to cite AI for layoffs. General Motors Co. said in May it would lay off information technology jobs globally as it focuses on artificial intelligence and other future-forward skillsets. GM’s plans affecting 500 to 600 workers entailed cutting tech jobs that are no longer needed, while hiring workers knowledgeable in AI and future technologies expected to power next-generation product development, The Detroit News previously reported.
Additionally, E.W. Scripps Co., which owns three TV stations in Michigan, said earlier this month it was cutting 268 jobs nationwide, including at WXYZ (Channel 7) in Detroit and WXMI (Channel 17) in Grand Rapids. Scripps President and CEO Adam Symson cited AI and other digital tools developed by the media company as part of a more “sustainable” model that it’s been developing over the past three years.
Weatherman Kevin Craig, who’d been with the station for 25 years, said in a recent social media post that he was told in May his contract with WXMI in Grand Rapids wasn’t being renewed.
In an interview with The News, Craig expressed concerns about the additional work for his colleagues from a smaller staff and the impact it would have on viewers’ ability to rely on the station.
“It’s absolutely incredible the skeleton crew left to put that show on,” Craig said of the morning program that he’d appeared on. He is one of two on-air staff members who were laid off, while others mostly were behind the scenes.
Craig emphasized that AI isn’t doing the weather forecasts. There still are three meteorologists on staff. But a program called Stacker can take prerecorded reports and compile them, reducing the need for positions like writers, editors, producers and news directors.
“That’s the majority of the staff that just got pink-slipped,” he said. “From a chief meteorologist perspective, I didn’t want to be on TV to be on TV. I cared about what I did, and I wanted to keep people safe. To remove that from the dynamics of providing news and information and safety to our viewing public, I don’t know how they’re going to do that. If you can’t trust them on a normal everyday weather day, how can you trust them when your life is in danger with severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings?”
In a memo to employees this month, Symson emphasized consumers’ desire for streaming, which requires a different model for news production. Scripps is launching 24/7 streamed programming in a dozen markets initially with plans to expand nationally. Technology, he added, is helping the company to invest more in reporting from the field than production tasks.
Gary Baxter, general manager at WXMI, echoed a similar sentiment in a statement: “We are evolving how we deliver local news so we can dedicate more resources to reporting in the communities we serve. Our focus is on putting more journalists in the field, covering the stories that matter most to West Michigan audiences, and providing trusted local news wherever and whenever people choose to consume it.”
A ‘story investors want to hear’
Michigan’s layoffs are unfolding against a national backdrop. The global technology sector eliminated nearly 154,000 jobs in the first half of 2026, according to a report from TradingPlatforms, which tracked layoffs using data from TrueUp, TechCrunch and state WARN filings. That pace puts the sector on track to exceed the 246,000 layoffs recorded in all of 2025.
Oracle Corp. has cut the most jobs of any tech company this year, with cumulative layoffs reaching 25,754. Amazon.com Inc. cut roughly 16,600 roles; Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. is cutting up to 15,000 positions globally under a restructuring program it calls “Project Leap;” Meta Platforms Inc. has cut about 10,400 roles across several rounds this year; and Microsoft Corp. cut roughly 5,500 positions in early July, about 2.5% of its global workforce.
Not every cut is framed as AI-driven. Amazon said its January reduction of 16,000 corporate roles was about removing bureaucracy and simplifying management, not AI, even as the company continues investing billions in AI infrastructure. A separate round of about 600 job cuts at an Amazon logistics facility in Homestead, Florida, was tied to converting the facility into a full-scale fulfillment center, unrelated to AI.
“When you look at this year’s job cuts, it’s easy to say AI is killing jobs. But look closer and you find two different things at play,” said Stanislava Savisheva, an analyst at TradingPlatforms. “A big part of it is genuine repricing; a company weighs what a task costs with AI versus without, and cuts the gap. But we are also seeing routine restructuring or a fiscal-year trim, dressed up in AI language because that’s the story investors want to hear.”
Meta and Cognizant have both tied their cuts explicitly to AI and investing in the technology, while other companies have been less direct even as they pour money into automation, Savisheva said.
AI prompts hiring, too
Yale University’s Budget Lab has not seen a major impact of AI on the labor market yet. Its most recent update even noted that since the fourth quarter of 2022, excess unemployment for AI-exposed workers has been somewhat positive, but in the second quarter, it moved closer to zero.
AI can be a valuable tool, Melville said. Although expectations years ago may have overestimated the potential impact, AI agents can reduce costs, speed up workflows and streamline processes in areas like customer service, coding and accounting.
“It’s rare that they can take a whole job that somebody needs to do, like a perfect substitute,” Melville said. “The job itself may have changed, and part of the job can become obsolete. That’s what we see more often.”
Some companies, such as IBM Corp., have cited AI for workforce reductions, only to find the technology had gaps. It’s hired more employees, though not in the same roles AI had replaced. It invested in fields where AI couldn’t compete with humans, like software engineering, marketing, client engagement and strategy.
Ford Motor Co. last month said it’s more than doubled its staff of quality technical specialists, hiring and promoting 350 engineers since 2023 who have been through multiple product cycles to teach AI tools and peer review with less-experienced engineers to improve efforts to identify quality issues sooner.
“Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool,” Charles Poon, the Dearborn automaker’s vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, said during a recent virtual briefing, “but it’s only as good as the information you use to train it. And over prior years we didn’t pay as much attention as we should have (to) the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers that have been with us through many product cycles.
“And unfortunately, we were not able to get all of the knowledge that they had built in that they used to develop reliable and high-quality vehicles before some of them had left the company. And mistakenly, we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that that would produce a high-quality product.”
Another application of AI in Ford’s plants is the use of Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot “dogs.” The automaker has used the robots for years to travel plant floors to map them. They also have sensors and microphones to mimic human senses, said Kumar Galhotra, Ford’s chief operating officer. Based on sound and vibration, the robots can identify if a bearing, a conveyor or robot arms is about to go out of service. They also can travel into more dangerous areas.
“That’s a possibility” that the robot replaces a job position, Galhotra said. “But for now, what it’s doing is actually telling our skilled tradesmen on where a potential problem is about to occur, versus waiting for the problem to occur. So, in that particular case, by preventing a production breakdown, you could argue it’s creating more jobs because people are busier making more vehicles.”
Not everyone views the AI-driven disruption as a net negative for Michigan’s job market. Leah Raphael, who specializes in Metro Detroit hiring activity for staffing firm Robert Half, said demand for skilled talent remains strong, particularly for workers with AI literacy.
“The demand for skilled talent is there,” Raphael said. “There’s a lot of fear out there about there not being a lot of jobs out there or no one’s hiring right now, and the data actually tells us the opposite.”
Raphael said companies are hiring quickly for high-priority projects, many of them centered on integrating AI into existing operations rather than filling standalone AI or technology roles.
“For any critical projects or big initiatives that are important to the company, a lot of that is centered around AI, and there is hiring for it,” Raphael said. “It’s not just technology roles or just AI roles; it’s typically integrating it, so they’re looking for talent that is ramped up on AI, has skills in AI, has some type of AI literacy.”
Raphael compared the shift to the rise of the internet, which created entirely new categories of jobs, such as web developers and digital marketing specialists, that hadn’t existed before.
“We believe AI will be a good thing for the labor market,” Raphael said. “It’s going to help automate tasks to free up professionals for more strategic work, create more jobs. Similar to the tech transformation, AI is expected to augment our human capabilities and lead to the creation of new skill specializations and roles.”
According to Robert Half research, 88% of organizations are already using AI, and 57% are optimistic about integrating it further into workflows. More than half of executives, 54%, expect AI to lead to job growth over the next two years, compared with 23% who expect it to shrink headcount.
The research also points to what Robert Half calls “AI hiring corrections.” More than 3 in 10 employers, 32%, eliminated positions after implementing AI, only to later rehire for those same roles. The top reasons cited were that the role required institutional knowledge AI couldn’t replace (40%), involved relationship management AI couldn’t replicate (39%), or that business demand increased and required more overall capacity (39%).
Rehiring after AI-related cuts was most common in legal (47%) and least common in tech and administrative and customer support roles (24% each).
Melville said companies most successful in adopting AI and handling the effects of it employ a “people-first” approach that entails reskilling or upskilling workers. Learning and development opportunities also can help with morale, which can be negatively affected by layoffs or the fear of them.
“It’s not the people that are the problem here. It’s the process,” Melville said. “If an agent can come in and do it better, it’s not their fault. It’s a process problem. Some of what I may do may become obsolete, but it doesn’t make me useless to the company.”
He recommends employees familiarize themselves with AI and its limits, have the skills to fill in those gaps, and focus on the abilities that are unique to humans, like being able to read a room, developing relationships and trust, supporting someone else emotionally, and creating a new idea.
“If you’re a person who is not too much of a people person, you need to become a people person,” Melville said. “It’s one of those unique, valuable human traits.”
mjohnson@detroitnews.com
bnoble@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Michigan firms have cited AI for layoffs. Reality may be more complex
Reporting by Myesha Johnson and Breana Noble, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Myesha Johnson and Breana Noble, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
