Crowdstrike to cut jobs and use AI

[ZeroStrawberries]

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https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/may/09/crowdstrike-to-cut-jobs-and-use-ai

CrowdStrike CEO announces 5% of workforce to be slashed globally, citing artificial intelligence efficiencies created in the business.

The cybersecurity company that became a household name after causing a massive global IT outage last year has announced it will cut 5% of its workforce in part due to “AI efficiency”.

In a note to staff earlier this week, released in stock market filings in the US, CrowdStrike’s chief executive, George Kurtz, announced that 500 positions, or 5% of its workforce, would be cut globally, citing AI efficiencies created in the business.
“We’re operating in a market and technology inflection point, with AI reshaping every industry, accelerating threats, and evolving customer needs,” he said.

In July last year, CrowdStrike pushed out a faulty update to its software designed to detect cybersecurity threats that brought down 8.5m Windows systems worldwide.
The outage caused chaos at airports, and took down computers in hospitals, TV networks, payment systems and people’s personal computers.

Aaron McEwan, vice-president of research and advisory at consultancy Gartner, said he was sceptical when companies announced AI efficiencies close to reduced revenue forecasts, as CrowdStrike had in March.
“I think particularly in the tech sector … it’s a way of justifying a reduction in the workforce because [of] a financial issue,” he said. “So either they’re not tracking well financially, or they’re trying to send a message to investors that good times are around the corner. So I’m immediately sceptical.”

Toby Walsh, professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales, said CrowdStrike’s announcement was “pretty tone deaf” after the outage last year.
“They would have been better redeploying this 5% of people to emergency response and bug fixing,” he said.
Walsh said the market should expect more of these announcements in future.

A World Economic Forum report in 2023 found nearly 23% of all jobs globally will change in the next five years due to AI and other macroeconomic trends. While 69m jobs are expected to be created, 83m jobs could be eliminated, leading to a net decrease of 2%, Shafiabady said.