Goldman Sachs: Companies discussing AI in the context of employees or layoffs appear to ...

Is AI leading to layoffs? This is the biggest question that analysts across spectrum have been trying to gauge. Goldman Sachs' recent economic analysis shows a bifurcated picture of artificial intelligence’s impact on the workforce.

The findings are claimed to be based on an analysis of third quarter corporate earnings of nearly all the S&P 500 companies and results commentary by senior economist Ronnie Walker. While the analysis showed that a relationship between overall labor market outcomes and AI exposure at the economy-wide level has yet to be established, it also showed something else.“While we still do not find a relationship between labor market outcomes and AI exposure at the economy-wide level,” Walker wrote, “we find that companies that have discussed AI in the context of their workforce have cut their job openings more sharply this year.”

Indeed, Walker wrote that most components of Goldman’s layoff tracker “increased notably” in recent months. He highlighted that the companies discussing AI in the context of their workforce or layoffs “indeed appear to be pulling back disproportionately on hiring.

” Walker said that management teams are increasingly viewing AI not just as a tool for efficiency but as a core component of their future human capital strategy, leading to preemptive cuts in new roles.

Walker’s piece agrees with a previous analysis by his Goldman colleagues David Mericle and Pierfrancesco Mei, who argued in October that “jobless growth” may become a new normal feature of the post-pandemic economy. In his analysis, Walker found that the companies that most frequently discussed tariffs had “disproportionately cut job openings this year.” Some companies reportedly noted that they planned to reduce costs by “hiring less, reducing headcount, or pursuing productivity-enhancing initiatives (such as investing in AI solutions).

” Goldman Sach's research shows that AI has quickly become a central topic in conversations about headcount within the tech sector since November 2022. Walker found a “bifurcated” outlook, as his research agreed with many economists’ arguments that the U.S. has a “K-shaped economy,” where consumer spending is strong overall, but concerns about lower-income health abound. This underperformance is expected to continue for the low-end consumer into 2026, Walker wrote, reflecting tepid job growth and pressure from benefit cuts.

'Clear evidence of layoffs directly motivated by AI remains limited'

In a related research in October 2025, Goldman Sach's economists Manuel Abecasis and Pierfrancesco Mei wrote, “So far, we do not find clear evidence that most of the increase in these measures is directly motivated by AI, even if we see large increases in tech layoffs across both the Challenger and WARN measures.” They added, “As our portfolio strategy team noted, only a small number of S&P 500 firms have explicitly referenced AI when discussing large-scale layoffs.

Most companies instead point to the need to streamline and restructure operations, sometimes attributing these changes to new technologies that enable efficiency gains.”