AI’s biggest champions have long argued that the technology will usher in an era of unprecedented productivity gains, richly rewarding workers who take advantage of it while displacing those who don’t.
Zeb Evans, CEO of collaboration software startup ClickUp, claims that change is imminent. Last Thursday Evans announced in X that the company, which was last valued in 2021 at $4 billion, had laid off 22% of its workforce, however he characterized this reduction as a cost-cutting measure, but rather a radical embrace of artificial intelligence that will propel the company to the next level.
“Most of the savings from this change will go directly back to the people who live. We’ll introduce million-dollar salary bands. If you make a big impact using AI, you’ll get paid outside of traditional bands,” Evans wrote.
ClickUp recently brought in about 3,000 in-house AI agents to handle a wide range of complex tasks on behalf of its employees, according to article of fortune published several days ago. Instead of performing the work themselves, staff members are now expected to direct these agents and ultimately review the output to ensure it meets company standards.
Evans’ goal, according to his X post, is for AI to supercharge ClickUp into a “100x org.”
ClickUp isn’t alone in its hope that AI agents will deliver massive productivity gains.
In fact, according to a recent Gartner survey, around 80% of companies using autonomous technology have cut jobs. However, the study found that they decreased the workforce they don’t necessarily translate in substantial financial returns.
While Gartner’s findings suggest that some companies are using unproven AI as an excuse to downsize, ClickUp argues that it is not one of them.
Evans told TechCrunch via email that the startup is indeed seeing productivity gains from AI agents. ClickUp not only measures these returns internally, but is apparently also preparing to include them in an upcoming product for its customers.
“Instead of gamifying the token cost, we gamify the value created and the time saved,” Evans wrote.
In recent months, a growing number of companies have begun tracking employee token consumption, using it as a metric to see who is actually adopting AI tools. But critics argue that “tokenmaxxing” — as the concept is known — is the wrong metric because it simply increases AI costs.
“People who automate their jobs with AI will always have jobs,” Evans argued in his post. But if AI continues to take over more tasks, ClickUp will eventually need fewer and fewer people, eliminating those who fail to automate their operations well.
Tech circles have long theorized this scenario.
There is already an extreme example of a high-profile startup making the most of AI automation. Polsia, a year-old startup that claims to handle all software functions for entrepreneurs, is run by a single person: its founder and CEO, Ben Broca. This efficiency is obviously paying off: Polsia just got promoted $30 million at a valuation of $250 million.
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