Or perhaps in some cases, neither, and they're just developing a narrative that the markets reward.

My company is laying people off. But also replacing them not with AI, but with contractors. And now, some new designation of "per project contracts" or something.

Anyhow, net effect? Less work useful work getting done, new cost of AI tools, AI tools not generating any value, and if you count total humans in the mix, it's at least as many as before.

Moving our product has never been more expensive and we've never done it this poorly before. But the market just sees "layoffs due to AI" and think it's because we (and others) have cracked the code of how to substitute humans with AI to save labour costs. We haven't. Not even CLOSE.