An AI Boomerang - From Firing to Rehiring (and 50% off at the drive-thru).
With Jez Rowe and Cam Lynch
Big companies that swapped people for AI, including CommBank, Klarna and reportedly Apple, are hiring humans back. Jez and Cam read it as AI hype meeting reality: the tech mostly works, but firms moved too fast, started in empathy-heavy customer service and underestimated the human in the loop. Their position is "not yet, not never", and the answer is still to upskill.
What this episode answers
Are companies rehiring staff after replacing them with AI?
Yes. By October 2026, several high-profile companies had reversed AI job cuts. CommBank cut 45 call centre jobs for an AI voice bot in 2025, then reversed it completely and called it an error. Klarna, which claimed its AI did the work of 700 staff, saw quality drop and started hiring humans again. Apple reportedly cut around 5,000 AppleCare support roles for AI agents and is rehiring. Reported figures suggest a third of these companies spent more rehiring than they saved.
Why did replacing customer service staff with AI fail?
It failed because companies moved too fast and underestimated the human in the loop, not because the AI doesn't work. That's the view of Jez Rowe, Chief Growth Officer at Vibe CFO. Customer service is human-led work where empathy is a core skill, yet it was the first place many firms cut. Instead of piloting in a couple of sites, they rolled out everywhere at once. McDonald's did the same with AI drive-through ordering, couldn't get orders right, and scaled it back.
Should my business replace staff with AI to cut costs?
No, not as a headcount play. AI was sold as cheap and a way to reduce staff, but the rehiring wave shows it works best with humans in the loop, which makes it more expensive than the pitch suggested. The real case for AI is productivity: the same people doing more, with that productivity turning into more revenue. Start small, prove it in one part of the business, and upskill your people to work alongside the tools.
Is AI still a threat to jobs after the rehiring wave?
Disruption is still coming, but it's a "not yet", not a "never". The rehiring wave is AI hype meeting reality, a handbrake rather than a reversal, and AI now has to prove itself. Some companies may simply keep embedding the tech and try the cuts again later. For workers and business owners the answer is the same as every past shift: upskill and adapt. People who learn to work with the machines will hold, and grow, their value.
Episode notes
For the last year the headline was AI coming for jobs. Now the jobs are coming back. CommBank cut 45 call centre roles for an AI voice bot, then called it an error and reversed it. Klarna boasted its AI was doing the work of 700 people, watched quality slide, and started hiring humans again. Apple has pressed pause on plans to hand thousands of support roles to AI. And by one count, a third of the companies that made these cuts have spent more rehiring than they saved.
Our take is that the AI mostly worked. What didn't work was the speed. Companies went straight to the big rollout instead of trying it in a couple of places first, a bit like McDonald's putting AI in the drive-thru before it could get a cheeseburger order right. And most of this landed in customer service, where empathy is the whole job.
So is this a "not yet" rather than a "never"? Probably. The disruption is still coming, but this feels like a handbrake that gives people time to learn to work alongside the machines. For accountants and business owners, it's a good news story. Humans in the loop are going up in value, not down.
Jez and Cam on why the fastest movers ended up paying twice, what the boomerang says about the human role, and why upskilling is the move whichever way it swings.
Five minutes. One thing that matters. We ignore the rest, so you can too.
Vibe CFO is Australian founded. An AI CFO for small and medium business, out of the box, governed and secure.
Vibe in 5.
Transcript
Read the full transcript
Ah, yet another big week in AI. This is The AI Exhale, hosted by Vibe CFO with Jez and Cam. Five minutes, one thing that matters, or maybe two. We ignore the rest so you can too.
Jez: All right, episode 22 of the AI Exhale. We might call this one the AI boomerang, given we are Aussie founded. And really, this is the boomerang of all the firing that happened earlier in the year and late last year.
You would have seen it in the news, in big corporate, the job apocalypse, which we talk to often. There's been a lot of rehiring. So we've got a big Aussie one, with CommBank cutting 45 call centre jobs for an AI voice bot in 2025. And they've reversed that completely and called it an error. Then you've got a pay later system, Klarna, which bragged its AI did the work of 700 staff. That was one of the biggest claims.
And then quality dropped and they've started hiring humans again. Apple is another one. They cut about 5,000 AppleCare support jobs, handed it to AI agents, and are rehiring. And one of the big stats is that a third of these companies have spent more rehiring than they saved. So it was a bit of a surge and a speed game, I guess, being over-optimistic about AI. I don't think it's the AI not working. I just think they overestimated the role of the human in the loop. That's my view.
What do you think about all this?
Cam: It's a bit strange. Like, why do they go so... McDonald's did this as well, right, where they put it through the drive-through, and they just did this massive launch. And I was like, whoa, hang on, why don't we apply this to two McDonald's and see how it goes? And instead they seem to just do this massive rollout, and then they couldn't get their cheeseburgers right, so they scale it back.
And then all of a sudden they say, it's out. It's not working.
Jez: I heard of guys going through the drive-thru and asking for 50% off, trying to trick it. That's really clever. But it's true. I mean, why not roll it out? I remember when they first started the 24/7 breakfast, I drove down to Wollongong from Sydney to get to the first store.
Cam: Don't you think that this is like AI hype meets reality? We know this.
Like, we must go. Hang on. Whoa.
Hold back. Listen to this. This is the head of Microsoft AI. He wrote this essay on AI safety, right? And he's talking about Anthropic. And he said that the training techniques explicitly tell the model that it has feelings and opinions. And then the researchers observe that the model seems to be showing feelings and emotions. It's circular.
Jez: It's circular, right?
Cam: Yeah. Far out. I want you to show empathy. And then they launch to the public, look at this, it's like a human. I'm like, you told it to do that.
Jez: Oh, how ironic. Well, we like to talk about human in the loop. Humans will remain and increase in value. It's just a productivity beast. So for us, it's the accountants and the small business owners.
This is a good news story.
Cam: Isn't that the frightening bit that we're worried about, right? A lot of this AI was positioned as reduce headcount, AI is cheap. And now it's like, it works quite well and you need humans in the loop, in headcount, and then you're sort of like, oh, hang on, it's actually really expensive. And now the pressure's on to get productivity, and then the productivity's got to return more revenue. I just feel like there's a little bit of compounding in all this.
Jez: Yeah. In short, I just think that this was expected. My takeaway is I feel like they all moved way too fast, and it seems to have been more in the customer service space as well, which, as we know, is very human-led. Empathy is needed as a skill. So this is sort of a way of just saying, hang on. Disruption is happening, there's no question, but let me just slow it down a bit here and allow humans to work with machines better. I just think it's slowing down. Would you say it's a not yet, not a never? Like, the AI has to prove itself first. I mean, God, we've seen some of the videos, I think out of India, where you've got humans training the actual physical robot, which is quite dystopian.
But all these people being hired back, do you reckon there's a sneaky, under the boardroom table note saying, let's get them back in, keep getting the AI further embedded, and then just do this again next year?
Cam: Yeah. I think we must move up the curve. I just think it's non-negotiable. And I'm not this dystopian guy that's saying that this is the end for humans. I just think that we must upskill. We always have. I always feel calm in myself when I'm like, these are the same lessons that we've already seen. We must upskill, we must adapt. And hopefully this is just sort of a handbrake, to adapt and allow humans to continue to evolve their skills in the interim as well.
And that's your five-ish minutes back. Vibe CFO, Australian founded. An AI CFO for small and medium businesses, out of the box, governed and secure. vibecfo.ai. Now you know.
Now you know.
The AI Exhale is made by VibeCFO. Australian founded, an AI CFO for small and medium business, out of the box.