AI’s biggest champions have argued for some time that the technology will usher in an era of unprecedented productivity gains, richly rewarding workers who harness it while displacing those who don’t.
Zeb Evans, CEO of the collaboration software startup ClickUp, claims that this shift is imminent. Last Thursday, Evans announced on X that the company, which was last valued in 2021 at $4 billion, had laid off 22% of its workforce yet characterized that reduction as not a cost-cutting measure, but rather a radical embrace of AI that will propel the company to the next level.
“Most savings from this change will flow directly back into the people who stay. We’ll be introducing million-dollar salary bands. If you create outsized impact using AI, you’ll be paid outside of traditional bands,” Evans wrote.
ClickUp recently introduced roughly 3,000 internal AI agents to handle a wide range of complex tasks on behalf of its employees, according to a Fortune article 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 the company’s standards.
Evans’s goal, according to his X post, is for AI to turbocharge ClickUp into a “100x org.”
ClickUp is not alone in its hope that AI agents will provide massive productivity gains.
In fact, according to a recent Gartner survey, about 80% of companies using autonomous tech have cut jobs. However, the study found that workforce reductions aren’t necessarily translating into meaningful financial returns.
While Gartner’s findings suggest some companies use unproven AI as an excuse to downsize, ClickUp maintains it is not one of them.
Evans told TechCrunch via email that the startup is indeed seeing productivity gains from AI agents. Not only is ClickUp measuring those efficiencies internally, but it’s also apparently gearing up to include them in a forthcoming product for its customers.
“Instead of gamifying token cost, we gamify value created and time saved,” Evans wrote.
In recent months, a grow …