76,000+ Jobs Lost to AI...
TL;DR
Atlassian made AI the explicit reason for cutting 1,600 jobs — the Jira/Confluence/Trello maker laid off roughly 10% of staff despite cloud revenue topping $1 billion last quarter and growing 26% year over year, with the stock rising on the news.
Publicly tracked AI-linked layoffs have already reached 76,800 in 2025 — according to the new Jobloss.ai dashboard from the Alliance for Secure AI, about 66,000 of those losses are in the U.S., with Atlassian currently topping the list.
Entry-level workers may get hit first and hardest — ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott said unemployment for new college grads could reach the “mid-30s” within a couple years because agents will do so much of the work, making it harder for young employees to stand out.
The hosts say this is no longer a one-off story but a weekly pattern — they compare AI jobs coverage to their recurring politics segment, arguing layoffs tied to AI efficiency are becoming a standing item as more reports surface from companies like Meta.
The real fight now is contingency planning, not certainty — they point listeners to Windfall Trust, Andrew Yang, and Brookings fellow Molly Kinder as examples of people actively planning for AI-driven job disruption instead of pretending “it’ll just work out.”
The Breakdown
Atlassian says the quiet part out loud
The episode opens with a jarring example: Atlassian is cutting about 1,600 jobs, roughly 10% of its global workforce, and explicitly framing it as preparation for “the AI era.” That’s what makes this different — not vague talk about restructuring or macro conditions, but a profitable, growing company saying AI is changing the workforce mix right now.
A growing company, not a struggling one
The hosts underline how unsettling this is because Atlassian’s numbers were strong: more than $1 billion in cloud revenue last quarter, up 26% year over year. Reuters calls it a strategic pivot, not a temporary belt-tightening move, and the stock going up after the layoffs only adds to the now-familiar pattern the hosts say they keep seeing.
The dashboard making the trend impossible to ignore
They point to Jobloss.ai, a new live dashboard from the Alliance for Secure AI that tracks publicly reported AI-linked job losses in real time. At the time of recording, it showed 76,800 total AI-linked losses globally since January 2025, about 66,000 of them in the U.S., giving the conversation a running tally instead of isolated headlines.
“We may need a weekly AI jobs segment”
One host says he hates that this is becoming a weekly topic, but that’s exactly what it feels like now — like politics, where you almost need a recurring roundup just to keep up. They mention fresh Reuters reporting that Meta could cut 20% or more of staff while pouring money into AI infrastructure, and the broader point is that these stories are accelerating, not fading.
Bill McDermott’s warning about young workers
The conversation then shifts to ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott, who says unemployment for new college graduates could reach the mid-30s in the next couple years because agents will handle so much work. The hosts linger on that because it’s not coming from a random pundit: ServiceNow is a roughly $120 billion company, and McDermott’s warning lands hardest on the entry-level cohort trying to break in.
The mismatch between current data and what leaders are signaling
They note that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York put recent graduate unemployment at about 5.7% at the end of 2025, which makes McDermott’s projection sound especially dramatic. But the hosts argue the more important takeaway is not whether the exact number is right — it’s that major executives are now openly talking about agent-driven reductions in the need for junior talent.
Who is actually trying to prepare for this?
In response to the constant question of “who’s working on solutions,” they highlight Windfall Trust, an organization seeded by the Future of Life Institute to plan for AI-driven economic disruption and build a globally accessible safety net. They also mention Andrew Yang and Brookings senior fellow Molly Kinder, whose scenario-planning framing really resonates with them: uncertainty is not an excuse to do nothing.
Stop pretending the outcome is settled
The episode ends with the hosts at their most forceful: they are not claiming certainty that mass job loss is inevitable, but they are deeply frustrated by leaders who confidently insist history guarantees everything will be fine. Their point is simple and sharp — if the future is uncertain, then serious contingency planning for bad and even medium-bad scenarios is the responsible move, especially for young people just entering the workforce.