I doubt AI has much to do with it. But it may be given as "excuse" by CXOs to explain why the cuts have been made. To add AI functionality, you will first need

I doubt AI has much to do with it. But it may be given as "excuse" by CXOs to explain why the cuts have been made. To add AI functionality, you will first need more developers, and a different kind (those that can train/evaluate/improve/deploy/integrate AI models) before potential savings can be kicking in. Some payback that may lead to layoffs could happen, but with a delay. It would be very silly to lay off a good developer rather than re-assign them, because the cost of hiring them is enormous, and you may not get the same quality again; in economic terminology, software engineers are "non-fungible resources".