The New Corporate Bet: Growth and Efficiency… Without Hiring?

The headcount headlines dominating the workplace

Amazon’s recent job cuts of 14,000 are just the latest signal of a growing corporate mindset: the belief that AI can deliver growth without hiring.

CEO Andy Jassy has been explicit about using AI to do more with less. In a June 2025 letter, he called Generative AI “a once-in-a-lifetime technology” that’s changing how Amazon serves customers, runs operations, and—yep—determines which roles are no longer needed. 

Jassy added, “As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs.”

But… Is AI really the reason behind the headcount cuts and headcount plateaus?

Interestingly, just days after Amazon’s announcement, Jassy insisted the layoffs weren't AI-driven at all, but part of a push to preserve a startup-like culture and org design (we talk all about what this call-for-startup org design really means in our latest piece here). 

He shared, “We are committed to operating like the world’s largest startup, and that means removing layers, it means increasing the amount of ownership that people have and it means inventing and moving quickly.”

The real forces at play

A few dynamics are driving this comfort with cutting—or freezing—headcount. Here’s what we’re seeing that’s not always being said in company memos:

• The bottom line rules. Labor remains the biggest expense on most P&Ls, point blank. AI optimism might soften the optics, but it’s still about cost control.
• Tariffs and rising costs. Trade pressures are forcing tough decisions on whether to absorb higher costs or pass them to consumers. For many, headcount cuts are the path of least resistance.
• Fixing pandemic bloat. Companies that bulked up during the post-COVID surge are now realizing they’re overstaffed. AI simply accelerates the reckoning.
• Lastly, AI is simply the perfect scapegoat. It offers a clean narrative for cost-cutting and restructuring that would likely have happened anyway. Blaming “efficiency through AI” makes layoffs sound strategic rather than reactive.

Put all together, these cuts are about timing, pressure, and perception. It’s the perfect storm where AI happens to be the most convenient narrative for all three.

Plus, the undeniable and lucrative edge to cut 

It also helps that investors have appeared to welcome job cuts. 

When Wall Street rewards “doing more with less,” it’s no wonder the new corporate mantra is less about hiring smarter, and more about hiring less in general…

The new corporate bet: growth and efficiency without hiring?

So, can you grow revenue, boost profits, stay competitive, all without hiring a single new person? Some of the world’s largest companies are putting this to the test.

• Goldman Sachs, for instance, is actively constraining headcount growth and eliminating roles that AI can handle more efficiently. 
• Walmart plans to keep its workforce flat for the next three years, even as sales climb.
• Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky puts it bluntly: “If people are getting more productive, you don’t need to hire more people… With the help of AI, the team we already have can get considerably more work done.” (Airbnb employs around 7,000 people, and Chesky says he doesn’t expect that number to grow much over the next year, thanks to AI-driven productivity gains.)

At first glance, these moves look like a case of just tightening the purse strings. A familiar reflex in an era of volatile markets and investor pressure. But underneath the layoffs and hiring freezes, something much more complex (and potentially transformative) is happening. 

This isn’t an easy landscape for most. Many are still figuring out how to do things entirely differently—rethinking structures, workflows, our own skill sets, capabilities, and the very mix of human creativity and machine intelligence that can create something incredible.

In this way, AI and its impact isn’t purely cynical, nor is it purely visionary. 

It’s both.

Yes, companies are cutting and/or not hiring to save costs, but we’re also looking at a radical rethink of what teams can accomplish when human intelligence is amplified by AI, when every employee becomes exponentially more capable.

Imagining the AI-augmented workforce that companies are experimenting with

The tension between efficiency and humanity is real, and it’s forcing leaders to redefine what productivity, purpose, and potential mean inside their organizations.  Let’s take a look at the growth marketing org as an example.

How AI in Growth Marketing Orgs Can Evolve To Help Headcount

Below is an experimental team structure example. Structures may vary by a wide range of factors, including but not limited to company size, industry, and AI readiness.

In this model:

• Traditional hierarchies give way to cross-functional, AI-augmented teams, where human leadership integrates fluently with AI capabilities. 
• AI becomes a true “teammate,” embedded in key areas like strategy, customer journey, and brand/creative functions. 
• Rather than slotting people into rigid roles, teams organize around outcomes and workflows, allowing AI to amplify human judgment while humans focus on high-value, creative, and strategic work.

Example scenario of AI "Teammate" in action: An early-stage B2B SaaS company's product launch sees strong traffic, but weak trial sign-ups.

Here, AI acts as the central nervous system of the org, routing insights in real time, auto-tagging issues by function, and keeping every team aligned to move faster, iterate smarter, and boost trial sign-ups with surgical precision.

Read more: Our recent piece, “AI’s Impact on Growth Marketing Orgs,” highlights how marketing teams are evolving under AI’s influence.

How should you think about hiring for this AI + human capability?

We’ve spoken with hundreds of companies and leaders who are all grappling with how to hire in a way that leverages AI while amplifying human potential. Here are some approaches that are proving effective.

1. Know where your company is in the pecking order when it comes to AI. 

Do you have the brand and story to attract who your business needs? Take a look at this framework:

Top AI leaders are in high demand, so closing this gap requires a strong value proposition and an understanding of the total addressable candidate market.

2. Structure your value prop & messaging across three strategic layers

• Company impact - Why AI matters for your organization’s vision and growth.
• Team impact - How teams contribute to and benefit from AI initiatives.
• Role impact - The unique opportunities each role offers, including the interplay of human creativity and AI.

Develop precise and consistent talking points that are unique to your company across each layer, including why and how AI is critical to your company story to resonate with top talent.

3. Look for early adopter traits

We’ve identified that these traits often indicate success with AI-driven change. 

• Curiosity & openness (inverse: Fear of obsolescence)
• Adaptability & flexibility (inverse: Resistance to change)
• Continuous learning (inverse: stagnation)
• Problem-solving focus (inverse: Status quo comfort)
• Risk-taking mindset (inverse: Doubt, fear of failing)

So you want to add headcount… What to keep in mind when hiring AI-native talent

Organizations are increasingly seeking AI-native professionals (those skilled in AI, automation, and emerging technologies) to, yes, join headcount and future-proof their workforce. A layered approach works best:

• Targeting skill sets like machine learning, AI prompting, and data analysis across even non-tech roles.
• Creating and hiring for AI-specific roles. For example, Hunt Club recently supported PE partners with hiring “AI Solutions Directors” to identify high-impact, holistic use cases and ensure they drive material value at the fund and portfolio level.
• Investing in internal upskilling programs to build AI literacy. PwC announced a $1 billion investment in AI and promptly rolled out its AI upskilling initiative “My AI”, where ~350 employees and “AI superusers” led workers through the tech transformation. Currently, about 95% of the company’s 75,000 staffers have engaged with “My AI” training and activities, clocking in 360,000 hours of use since the launch. Workers who use the interactive bot ChatPwC report an overall 20% to 40% increase in job productivity from the time freed up by using the AI, according to PwC. 
  
  

Maybe it’s not “do more with less,” but “do more with different.”

The knee-jerk reaction to AI is fear. But AI doesn’t completely eradicate the need for people. It changes what we hire for. Let’s bring back the same quote above from Jessy and this time… focus on the last sentence in this new light.

“As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs.”

Now, we’re looking at how to create the jobs we actually need in light of AI. The challenge—and opportunity—lies in embracing this change thoughtfully, pairing AI with human potential to create entirely new ways of working.

But maybe this is how we can rethink, reshape, reclaim hiring. In this way, hiring becomes once again an intrinsically, radical human act.

Something we’ve always known.