The Ledger Behind the Layoffs

Four straight months, AI is now the single most cited reason for US job cuts, the highest level Challenger has logged since it began tracking AI as a layoff reason in 2023. The same quarter, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta are guiding to roughly $700 billion in combined 2026 infrastructure spending, close to double last year. Stanford's AI Index puts productivity gains of 14 to 26 percent in customer support and software development, the same fields where entry-level hiring is starting to slip. Cut humans, buy compute. The ledger shows the org chart before HR does. This week: why your company's AI budget line is the real strategy memo, the workplace agent worth a look before you connect it to everything, and the ten-minute audit that keeps your AI logins off IT's next incident report.