‘AI rebounding’: Nearly 20% of U.S. workers replaced by AI are being asked back—now they’re demanding higher pay, job security and AI transparency
The firm found that younger workers were more likely to report experiencing the “AI rebounding.” Among respondents aged 18 to 24, 24% said they had personally been replaced by AI and later asked to return, compared to 19.1% of U.S.
Key points
- workers say they have experienced a workplace reversal that could signal a new trend in the labor force: their employer replaced them with AI, only to ask them to return later, according to new research from talent assessment firm SHL.
- The AI doesn’t deliver, the gap becomes obvious, and the business ends up rehiring the same experts they just let go of, at a far greater cost.” The survey, conducted in June and July, found that 19.1% of American respondents said they had personally been replaced by AI and were subsequently asked to return to their jobs.
- The company said AI is very important to quality gains, “and that, in tandem with deep technical expertise, is what’s needed.” AI layoffs have been looming, but jobs are growing Despite the rise of AI rebounding, the number of companies that cited AI as a reason for workforce reductions has grown substantially.
Additionally, 42% said they would require written guarantees about future job security, and 40% wanted transparency about how AI would be used in their positions.
Additional details
- According to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, employers cited AI in 121,401 announced job cuts through October, more than double the 54,836 announced layoff plans for all of 2025.
- Swedish buy-now, pay-later company Klarna began recruiting human customer service representatives after relying heavily on AI chatbots.
- The phenomenon, which SHL calls “AI rebounding,” shows an early indication that some companies may be discovering the limitations of replacing human employees with AI.
- “Organizations are making fast, sometimes myopic, decisions about their people based on an incomplete picture of what their employees can do with or without AI,” Lucy Beaumont, global senior vice president of product and design at SHL, said in a press release.
- A Klarna spokesperson told Fortune human agents were needed “for complex, sensitive cases.” The company began directly hiring a “small number” of high-skilled humans into the customer service process to identify where the “human touch” can bring most value to customers.
How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →
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