Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman warned staff over the potential impact of AI on jobs, urging them to upskill and adapt amidst the rise of the technology.
In an internal memo sent to some 700 staff and subsequently published on social media, Kaufman said employees should take steps to future proof their careers in the long term.
“I’ve always believed in radical candor and despise those who sugar-coat reality to avoid stating the unpleasant truth,” he wrote. “The very basis for radical candor is care.”
“So here is the unpleasant truth: AI is coming for your jobs. Heck, it’s coming for my job too. This is a wake-up call”.
Kaufman warned that the scope of AI-related job losses will continue to widen as the technology becomes more pervasive across a number of industries. Administrative or support roles will no longer be exclusively in the crosshairs as more technical positions will begin feeling the strain.
“It does not matter if you are a programmer, designer, product manager, data scientist, lawyer, customer support rep, salesperson, or a finance person - AI is coming for you,” he added.
With the threat of their roles being rendered obsolete as a result of AI, Kaufman strongly advised staff to begin upskilling or reskilling, else they’ll “face the need for a career change in a matter of months”.
Recommended approaches from the chief exec included finding the ‘most knowledgeable people” on their team to help them “become more familiar with the latest and greatest in AI” and “become a prompt engineer”.
“LLM and GenAI are the new basics, and if you’re not using them as experts, your value will decrease before you know what hit you”.
“Get involved in making the organization more efficient using AI tools and technologies. It does not make sense to hire more people before we learn how to do more with what we have.”
Going all in on prompt engineering might not work out
Prompt engineering was hailed as the next big thing in the tech profession following the advent of generative AI. But staff taking Kaufman’s advice at face value might find they’re still walking into obsolescence.
Research from VMware last year suggested AI models were actually becoming better suited to generating their own prompts.
These claims were based on tests comparing human-generated “positive thinking” prompts against “systematic prompt optimization” - essentially AI-generated prompts.
Automated processes delivered better results, researchers found.
At the time, experts told ITPro that despite the hype, tech workers hedging their bets on prompt engineering as a future career path might quickly find themselves flung onto the scrap heap.
The slow creep of AI job losses
The topic of AI-related job losses has become a contentious topic in both the tech industry and broader business landscape. Shortly after the advent of generative AI in late 2022, research from Goldman Sachs suggested that hundreds of millions of roles could be rendered obsolete within the space of a decade due to automation.
While widespread job losses haven’t yet materialized as a direct result of AI adoption, there have been signs that the technology is influencing hiring patterns and layoffs at a host of major tech companies.
Earlier this year, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff suggested that the firm might not hire any new software engineers as a result of its internal agentic AI gains. Meanwhile, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg hinted that the firm could begin replacing engineers with AI.
Running parallel to predictions of AI replacement in some professions, we’ve also seen enterprises justify layoffs as a result of their sharpened focus on the technology.
Last year, a host of major tech companies, including Cisco, and Dell Technologies, justified cuts under the auspices of ‘focusing on high-growth areas’ and ‘streamlining layers of management’.
They aren’t alone in this, however. In February this year, Workday announced plans to cut its workforce by 8.5% as the company ramps up its AI focus.
Confirming the move, CEO Carl Eschenbach said the current business landscape required a new approach and that the firm will reassess where its key focus areas lie.
“Companies everywhere are reimagining how work gets done, and the increasing demand for AI has the potential to drive a new era of growth for Workday,” Eschenbach.
Upskilling will be vital
Kaufman’s calls for staff to upskill appear justified, with research showing that workers across a host of professions and industries will need to adapt due to the influx of AI tools.
Research from Gartner in late 2024 suggested that 80% of the software engineering workforce will need to upskill by 2027, for example.
Attracting staff with AI skills has been a major focus for big tech companies over the last two years, and there are signs the industry is facing a significant deficit in this regard.
The situation has forced many companies to pay well over the odds to poach staff with expertise in these domains, with research from AWS showing some are willing to pay as high as a 31% premium.
Alternative research from Indeed revealed AI skills could secure workers some of the most financially rewarding jobs, with half of the highest-paid skills related to AI and offering an average salary of $174,000.
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