Opportunities for artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace continue to advance. Inspired by the growth of generative AI, many companies are starting to create structures and processes to incorporate it. At the SuperAI event last week, for example, I attended a panel that included DBS Bank’s Head of Gen AI and Future of Work, a title that didn’t exist just two years ago.
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However, as the controversial events of the past two months have shown, organisations and their leaders need to be clearer when communicating about AI with their staff and investors.
#1 Amazon
Earlier in June, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy sent a memo to all staff regarding the use of generative AI in the company. One line stood out in that message: “In the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.” Although the rest of the message was positive and forward-looking, it only took that one line to elicit a swift backlash from employees.
No one likes to hear that they might lose their job, and the vague, non-committal terms in Jassy’s message were interpreted by some to be a veiled threat, especially to workers who were less familiar with AI. “Figure out how to invent for our customers more quickly and expansively, and how to get more done with scrappier teams,” said another line. Bluntly put, learn AI or be left behind.
What we can learn: While there is inherently nothing wrong with a technology giant like Amazon stating the obvious, it was the choice of words that its CEO used that led to much unhappiness. “We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs,” is the kind of statement that doesn’t inspire any confidence among employees.
In fact, it’s unfortunate that Jassy’s message of job cuts overshadowed his more inspiring words in his statement, including “If we build and leverage the right (AI) agents, it’s going to rapidly accelerate our ability to make customers lives easier and better every day, and it’s going to make our jobs even more exciting and fun than they are today.”
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#2 Duolingo
Jassy is not the only CEO to deliver this ominous message, just the latest. Last month in May, language learning firm Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn shared a memo that was arguably even more tone deaf. He said the company would “gradually stop using contractors to do work that AI can handle,” and “headcount will only be given if a team cannot automate more of their work”. AI use would be what they “look for in hiring”, and “evaluate in performance reviews”.
The problem? The nature of Duolingo’s business is creating language courses. Languages are often fluid and nuanced, and teaching languages well requires familiarity with cultures. Many of the contractors that Duolingo laid off in 2024 as the company embraced AI were translators who would’ve been able to give these language courses a needed human touch.
Earlier this year, the company announced the launch of 148 new courses after only using generative AI for a year. Previously, the company had taken 12 years to develop their first 100 courses. Despite assuring that “every course meets Duolingo’s rigorous quality standards”, von Ahn’s CEO memo admitted that “we’d rather move with urgency and take occasional small hits on quality than move slowly and miss the moment”.
The backlash to the memo was significant enough that von Ahn eventually made a LinkedIn post admitting that he “didn’t do that well” in providing clarity about his AI stance.
What we can learn: As von Ahn stated at the start of his LinkedIn statement, he missed the mark in doing what a CEO is supposed to do – “provide clarity”. Unlike Amazon’s CEO, von Ahn needed to do more than simply reassure his staff that they would not be replaced. He needed to assure them that the company’s mission wasn’t going to be compromised using AI.
Instead, the focus on quality education was missing from the original memo. He only brought up in his LinkedIn statement, “I see it as a tool to accelerate what we do, at the same or better level of quality. “ It’s a subtle but substantial change that reassured employees that their CEO had not forgotten what was important to the company.
#3 Builder.ai
Despite the backlash over the use of AI by Amazon and Duolingo, one could argue that the chaos ultimately stemmed from poor initial communication that did not reassure workers sufficiently about their future with the company. There is nothing inherently controversial about stating that using AI will transform jobs.
It is therefore not surprising that the biggest controversy in AI so far is Builder.ai, which is expected to declare bankruptcy after creditors accused it of overinflating sales numbers. Unlike the other two companies on this list, the controversy doesn’t involve AI, but rather the lack of it.
Builder.ai, previously known as Engineer.ai, is no stranger to scandal. Back in 2019, even before the generative AI boom, the Wall Street Journal investigated Engineer.ai’s claims of software apps developed by “human-assisted AI”. The truth, they revealed, was that the “human-assisted AI” was ultimately human engineers doing most of the work, and little evidence of the technology that it had assured investors they were working on.
Despite the WSJ exposé, Engineer.ai renamed itself to Builder.ai and continued to attract investment, with a valuation of about $1.5 billion after a fundraising round led by the Qatar Investment Authority. However, without an actual groundbreaking AI product, Builder.ai relied on an alleged effort to artificially inflate revenues. Following an audit and a change in leadership, creditors seized the cash in Builder.ai’s bank accounts, triggering the company’s collapse.
What we can learn: Many of Builder.ai’s investors, including Microsoft, were likely in a rush to back promising AI startups, especially following the success of OpenAI (which Microsoft also backed) and Anthropic. The fall of Builder.ai is perhaps the biggest warning of the dangers of “AI-washing”, a deceptive practice where the role of AI in a company’s model is overstated to capitalise on a trend.
