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IBM has revealed that 94% of its HR tasks are now handled by artificial intelligence, a move that has significantly reduced headcount while boosting output across the business.
CEO Arvind Krishna said AI adoption has enabled the company to reallocate investment and expand operations. Additionally, over the past two years, IBM has seen $3.5 billion in productivity gains across 70 business units, according to CTO Ji-eun Lee.
Krishna told The Wall Street Journal that the tech giant had tapped into AI to take over the work of several hundred human resources employees. IBM's workforce expanded instead of shrinking, he said, and the company used the resources freed up by the layoffs to hire more programmers and salespeople.
"Our total employment has actually gone up, because what [AI] does is it gives you more investment to put into other areas," Krishna told The WSJ.
A rethink for HR departments
He specified that those "other areas" included software engineering, marketing, and sales or roles focused on "critical thinking," where employees "face up or against other humans, as opposed to just doing rote process work."
Changes at this level are pushing HR departments to reconsider their own use of artificial intelligence. IBM’s CHRO Nickle Lamoureux told analyst Josh Bersin that AI systems now write performance reviews, generate development plans, and coach managers through performance decisions. Bersin expects AI will lead to a 20-30% reduction in HR headcount per employee, affecting functions like learning and development and training.
The policy gives pause for thought for HR teams that have not yet fully engaged with AI technology at this level. One senior HR expert said that AI can elevate HR beyond traditional processing tasks. “HR is uniquely positioned to decode what people need to grow, stay and succeed,” she said, advocating for a systemic, data-driven model of talent management that can improve retention, performance, and company culture.
Collaboration becomes the new normal
Instead of full automation, leaders predict that AI will augment, not replace, human talent. Another HR leader said that while some tasks will be entirely handed to AI, implementation and oversight must remain human-led. “Bringing on an AI agent is not a senior hire,” they noted. “Recruiting and retention become even more important, mapping skills between what agents do and what humans do.”
