In layoff memos across corporate America this year, one word keeps surfacing: AI.
Business Insider obtained and analyzed 15 layoff memos from companies ranging from Jack Dorsey’s fintech firm Block to Meta to Disney in 2026 to identify the most commonly used terms, excluding filler words. We illustrated those words below, with their size and order indicating how often they were mentioned.
“AI” led the way with 46 mentions, followed by “customers” and “build.”
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The analysis shows how executives are using language signaling productivity, speed, and an AI-driven future to explain their job cuts to employees and the public.
For example, Block CEO Jack Dorsey slashed his company’s workforce nearly in half in February. He said, as he cut over 4,000 roles, that “intelligence” tools were accelerating rapidly and being combined with “smaller and flatter” teams.
“AI is the most common word in these memos because most organizations are heavily investing in AI — or the promise of AI — as humankind’s first ever capital substitute for cognitive labor,” Peter Banko, CEO of healthcare system Baystate Health and author of a book about how to handle firings called “The Necessary Goodbye,” told Business Insider.
Workers are feeling AI’s impact
AI is a major disruptor in the corporate world. It’s upending workflows across industries. When it’s paired with the macroeconomic challenges, such as weaker consumer spending and geopolitical instability, it pushes executives to revisit their business models. That’s where the phrases “build” or “building” come in, Banko said.
“This is not an era of rethinking and rebuilding,” Banko said. “This is a time for building anew.”
There is new ground to cover, and companies are reducing head count and investing in AI to get where they want to be, he said. If they want to spend millions with Anthropic or OpenAI, that money has to come from somewhere.
For example, Meta told employees in a May memo that its 8,000 job cuts were meant to offset “other investments.”
Human resources analyst and consultant Josh Bersin isn’t so sure that AI is as big a factor as companies are telling employees it is.
Citing AI as a reason for layoffs is “a positive statement to investors or customers that the company’s becoming more efficient,” Bersin told Business Insider. “The reality is that in most cases, the company overhired.”
We’re entering a new world of deliberate hiring and engineered productivity, Bersin said. This is a shift from the hiring sprees seen across the tech industry during the COVID pandemic, for example, when demand for digital services surged. AI is an “excuse” to reduce the head count of unproductive parts of the company that would likely remain that way even with AI tools at their disposal, Bersin said.
OpenAI’s Sam Altman, in February, said some companies were “AI washing” layoffs they planned to make anyway. Of course, Altman’s company provides AI tools that can disrupt jobs, though he’s said affected people would adapt and find new ways to work.
Companies want to get faster
A common theme around speed in the memos also struck Banko. Terms like “faster,” pace,” and “accelerating” showed up frequently, as companies touted efficiency as a priority. Getting faster isn’t a bad thing, he said, but it’s not always the best way for an organization to “truly win.”
When you sift through the jargon and filler words of these memos, Banko said companies are talking about the structural challenges they’re facing in 2026. This includes consumerism, rising costs of the workforce and supply chains, global volatility, and policy shifts.
The memos point to a future of companies building toward doing more work with fewer people.
