AI isn’t just changing jobs — it’s testing leadership. David Grossman of The Grossman Group has seen what separates executives who navigate restructuring successfully from those who don’t. Spoiler: it’s not strategy. It’s communication
How should executives communicate AI-related layoffs to the rest of the organization ?
How matters more today in an AI-related layoff because the workforce reads into each move twice:
Start with the people being let go. They hear it from someone who knows them, in a real conversation that leaves room for questions. A manager or a leader does it, face-to-face where the logistics allow.
For the rest of the organization, the person who made the decision is the one who explains it. A recorded video or a live all-hands puts the CEO in front of the workforce, visible and accountable.
Then come the managers, who carry the heaviest load. They need rehearsal time and language they can use before they walk into the conversations their teams will bring the next morning. Handling the questions employees are thinking is key to a productive discussion.
None of it ends at the announcement. The leaders who hold a workforce together stay visible afterward, with a follow-up at one week, an honest assessment at 30 days, and a check-in at the 60- and 90-day marks. That is where most of the real work happens.
What themes or principles should guide that messaging?
Three things matter, and the order is part of the message.
Concern comes first. In a layoff announcement, the audience is asking whether leadership sees the human cost. Most CEO announcements bury the human acknowledgment at the close. When Wix CEO Avishai Abrahami announced 1,000 layoffs in May, his memo led with, “we must evolve” and “compete or risk falling behind.” The human note came at the end. That order is a mistake. Effective employee communications open with what the news means for the people affected. The strategic rationale follows.
Empathy lives in the specific words a leader chooses — words that keep the person in mind. “We are letting go of people who helped build this company.” “This is a hard day, and I won’t pretend otherwise.” Compare that with the language that turned up in this year’s announcements, like “lower-value human capital” and “roles that do not adapt.” Each one turns a person into a category.
A simple test sorts the two:
- Would I use this in a one-on-one with an affected employee?
- Could a former colleague screenshot it and read it as honest a year from now?
- Do the words describe what’s happening or hide what’s happening?
Clarity closes the loop. Tell people what you know, what you don’t know yet, and what you’re working through. Acknowledging uncertainty lands more believably than false certainty.
How should leaders communicate with the employees who remain in order to reassure them that their work still matters and that they have a future within the organization?
Be direct. The damaging move is manufactured reassurance e.g. “don’t worry, you’re fine,” or “you’re not on the list,” or “that’s above my pay grade.” Each one treats the employee as someone to be handled.
What works is the four-question conversation. Every manager should be sitting with every direct report across the 90 days after a restructuring and asking, in some form:
- What’s on your mind right now?
- What are you carrying that I should know about?
- What does this mean for what you want to be working on?
- What do you need from me in the next 30 days?
The fourth question is where the future-work conversation lives. People are asking themselves whether they have a place in the AI-augmented version of the company. The leaders who help their workforce through change get specific about what the work looks like in the months ahead and where this person fits in it.
How significant a threat is AI to jobs across the advertising, media, and marketing industries?
I’m not an AI expert, and I won’t try to predict which jobs the technology will eliminate in these industries. What I can speak to is the leadership and communication problem this moment is creating. That problem is significant.
More than 113,000 tech jobs were eliminated in the first half of 2026, and roughly half of those cuts were explicitly attributed to AI in the company announcements. Sam Altman has called the practice “AI washing.” Deutsche Bank predicted “AI redundancy washing” would be a defining feature of 2026 and was right. An NBER study of nearly 6,000 executives found that more than 90% reported no AI impact on employment over the last three years. The data and the rhetoric don’t match.
For advertising, media, and marketing leaders, the risk is the temptation to use AI as the rationale for decisions driven by other things. So much of the work in these industries has been promised to AI by clients and analysts, so the cover story is convenient. Employees can tell the difference between real AI-driven change and a cover story.
Specificity solves for this. What is AI doing in this company? Which roles are being augmented, redesigned, or eliminated, and what’s the story for each? Detail at that level is what helps the workforce through these moments.
One thing worth adding that didn’t come up in the questions.
The real work isn’t the announcement. It comes during the 90 days after the announcement. Most companies pour their preparation into announcement day and almost nothing into the months that follow, when survivors are deciding whether to stay, customers are reassessing the relationship, and the media is writing the second-day coverage, which shapes the narrative for the next quarter.
The retention data confirms it. Research from the University of Wisconsin’s Trevor and Nyberg found that a 2% staffing cut produces a 36% rise in voluntary quit rates among the people who stayed. That spike shows up months later, when the survivors have finished updating their beliefs about leadership.
