Business AI
Chegg will lay off 45% of its workforce, cutting 388 jobs as generative AI and declining Google search traffic slash revenue. The company says it is restructuring its academic products while continuing to fund its own AI tools. Dan Rosensweig returns as CEO effective immediately, replacing Nathan Schultz, who shifts to executive advisor. The board ended its strategic review and unanimously chose to keep Chegg independent. Chegg’s stock has crashed 99% from its 2021 high, shrinking its market cap from $14.7 billion to roughly $156 million. The dramatic value loss, coupled with two major layoff rounds this year, shows how quickly AI-driven competition has gutted the firm’s longtime education model.
Research highlighted in The Wall Street Journal posits that AI is already widening the chasm between top performers and everyone else.
Why it matters: This widening performance gap is expected to create significant workplace friction and resentment as top performers grow frustrated with colleagues who can't keep up.
The programme, Will AI Take My Job? aired Monday evening, investigating AI automation's impact on sectors from law to medicine.
Viewers discovered at the show's close that its host, Aisha Gaban, was entirely AI-generated.
The AI presenter said: “AI is going to touch everybody’s lives in the next few years. And for some, it will take their jobs. Call centre workers? Customer service agents? Maybe even TV presenters like me. Because I’m not real. In a British TV first, I’m an AI presenter.
A Stanford University study found that generative AI is eating entry level jobs for workers 22 to 25 year old. The paper, which is based on ADP data, found that early career workers in occupations exposed to genAI have seen a 13% relative decline in employment.
Some of the occupations with the biggest genAI hit included software development and customer service.