Jobs cut, AI rolled out: Company forced remaining employees to use AI system, later blamed them for shoddy work
At a time when many companies are pushing AI as a way to get more work done with fewer people, the reality on the ground is turning out to be more complicated. Tools that promise speed and efficiency are, in some cases, adding to the workload instead of reducing it, leaving employees to deal with the gaps. At a Miami-based cybersecurity firm, this change became more evident after layoffs hit the team. The remaining employees were soon asked to rely heavily on AI chatbots to maintain output. Among them was Ken, a copywriter who had until then found his workload demanding but manageable. When AI was introduced, it initially felt like a relief – drafts could be created in seconds, cutting down hours of effort. But that sense of ease didn’t last very long. Here is what happened.
What started arriving in Ken’s inbox every day was something employees now call “workslop,” content that looks polished on the surface but quickly falls apart on closer inspection, according to The Guardian. Paragraphs that made little sense, facts that didn’t check out, and responses that felt disconnected from the actual task. Fixing it took time. Sometimes, it took more time than doing the work from scratch.
“Quality decreased significantly, time to produce a piece of content increased significantly and, most importantly, morale decreased,” Ken said. “Everything got a whole lot worse once they rolled out AI.”
The frustration didn’t stop there. When employees raised concerns, hoping for some flexibility or better guidance, the response they got was not what they expected. According to Ken, the blame quietly moved toward the staff, as if the falling quality of work was their fault, not the tools they had been asked to depend on.
Workers blamed as AI productivity claims fall apart
This gap between expectation and reality is not limited to one company. A recent WSJ survey of 5,000 white-collar workers in the US paints a telling picture. While most senior executives believe AI is making teams more productive, a large number of employees say it isn’t saving them time at all. For many, it is doing the opposite.
Part of the problem lies in how quickly AI has been pushed into everyday work without enough clarity. Employees are being told to use it, but often without clear instructions on when, where, or how it actually helps. The result is confusion and a growing pile of work that needs fixing.
Jeff Hancock, a Stanford researcher who has studied this trend, says many workers are being asked to rely on AI without proper support. While he believes the technology has long-term promise, the current experience for many employees feels far from efficient.
His study found that a significant number of workers encounter “workslop” regularly and spend hours each month dealing with it. Across a large organisation, that lost time can quietly add up to millions in reduced output.
Besides, it is worth mentioning that buy-now-pay-later firm Klarna also witnessed something similar in 2025, realising that it can’t be dependent on AI and will require humans for flawless work. The company revealed that it had to revisit its AI-led customer service approach after seeing a drop in user experience. The company’s CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said the company plans to bring back human support, admitting that over-reliance on automation did not deliver the expected results.
Klarna had earlier claimed its AI assistant handled 2.3 million chats in 2024, replacing work equivalent to about 700 agents and helping reduce costs. However, the shift appears to have impacted service quality. The company has already started testing a flexible, app-based model that allows human agents to work remotely, similar to gig platforms.
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