How AI is Reshaping our World of Work

Recently, tech giant Oracle announced huge layoffs likely to impact up to 30,000 roles. The move tracks a wider trend in the tech industry that has seen global workforces shrink at a staggering rate. Amazon has made over 30,000 redundancies since October 2025 and Microsoft laid off 15,000 workers last year, while Meta recently warned it could look to decrease headcount by as much as 20%. According to global tracking app Layoffs.fyi, over 118,000 tech roles have already been axed since the start of this year. 

Big tech has grown accustomed to its CEOs publicly attributing mass redundancies to AI, whether that's reducing staff costs to fund AI investment (the big four plan to collectively spend $485bn on AI in the coming year) or more ambiguous AI-related "efficiency savings" or "futureproofing". Either way – and however it's spun – the tech industry is betting big on AI, and it is the workers who are increasingly paying the price.  

Defying Expectations

Beyond the realm of this progressively volatile market, the impact of AI on the world of work is constantly under the microscope. While many experts predicted rapid, widespread disruption at the hands of AI, the reality is– if you look at the statistics – that this transformation is currently happening at a far slower rate, and in a more subtle and nuanced way, than we'd perhaps previously anticipated. A recent study found that since November 2022, AI has only been responsible for a 0.1 percentage point rise in aggregate unemployment, a somewhat surprising statistic given all the furore surrounding AI and the job market.  

However, this data might not reveal the complete picture. In contrast to the tech industry, where AI-related lay-offs are seemingly worn like as badge of honor, most other industries are less inclined to directly associate redundancies with AI, making its true impact on the job market harder to track or analyze in any meaningful way. 

A Cautious Relationship

The scholarly publishing sector, which has a particularly complex relationship with AI, is without doubt among these industries. Collectively priding itself on trust and integrity, publishers are highly conscious of the reputational risks that may come with being seen to favor AI tools over human expertise. As such, to date, no major academic publisher has made a public "AI layoff" announcement akin to those we've seen in adjacent industries.  

But just because AI has not been mentioned in the same breath as job losses, it doesn't necessarily mean that it has not been an influential factor in big boardroom decisions, such as cost cutting measures, digital transformation projects, departmental consolidations and even larger scale corporate restructures.  

Silent Shifts and Role Attrition

In many industries, we are likely to see quiet and gradual attrition take hold, whereby roles are phased out when employees leave, or junior level positions are no longer advertised because AI tools can now carry out the more routine, automatable tasks. 

The proliferation of AI innovation in academic publishing has transformed the way we go about our daily business, with publishers now deploying the technology to carry out the heavy lifting in areas such as copyediting, proofreading, formatting, typesetting and manuscript screening. 

In theory, this should mean that publishers are now able to operate leaner editorial and production teams and reduce headcount. But in practice we are witnessing a completely different scenario unfold. Creaking under the strain of submission surges, overloaded peer review systems and the pressures of a volume-driven market with output growth of 4% each year, publishers need all the help they can get.  

Villain and Hero

In this story, AI is depicted as both villain and hero. On one hand it is widely blamed for the overwhelming increase in submissions publishers now need to process, yet on the other it is widely praised for driving the technology at the heart of the innovations and systems that can help publishers better manage their workflows and boost productivity. Many publishers have found that the solution to this problem is not a leaner workforce with a lower headcount, but instead an adapted, middle to top-heavy workforce, with more senior editorial roles, that is built to survive and thrive in this new environment.  

A New Dawn

As roles are redefined and day-to-day tasks evolve to become more strategic, analytical and judgement-oriented, we are seeing fundamental changes in skill requirements across the board, and this is arguably the biggest shift taking place in the industry.  

Proven capabilities and experience in AI-assisted editing and reviewing, data literacy and research analytics, prompt engineering and oversight of AI-generated content are now highly valued and sought after. Meanwhile, as publishers restructure and repurpose their teams and offerings to confront the new reality, entirely new job categories are starting to emerge, from research integrity and AI-detection experts to AI policy and ethics specialists – positions and roles that couldn't have been dreamt up just three years ago. 

Across the globe and in every single industry, AI is rapidly revolutionizing the world of work, for better and for worse, and in thousands of different ways. Scratching beneath the surface and society's obsession with analyzing AI's net-positive vs net-negative impact, we are starting to see what this new world will look like. While academic publishing might not be witnessing the huge job displacements of the tech industry, the disruption is not necessarily any less significant. It's more a case of "Out with Tradition" than "Adapt or Die" as tasks are redefined, roles are reimagined, new skills are prioritized and new structures developed, reshaping our relationship with work, possibly forever.

KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. (KGL) is the industry leader in editorial, production, eLearning, online hosting, and transformative services for every stage of the content lifecycle. We are your source for learning solutions, intelligent automation, research integrity, digital delivery, and more. Email us at info@kwglobal.com.