Guessing either:

1. Leadership lives so deeply in techbro echo chambers that they are completely oblivious to the volatility of the market.

2. These companies have a poor financial outlook and are hedging their bets that an AI pivot can give them access to income they need.

To me, the fact that they’re starting with layoffs means that they are in dire straits and need to cost cut badly, and are hoping that declaring a dedicated push to adopt AI will retain some measure of confidence from the market.

If a company was doing well prior to adopting AI, they’d fold it into their workflows first and then start looking at who is redundant and who should stay.