[Ensorceled]

I recently did a contract at medium sized business with a large retail and online business that had a CFO and several accountants / bookkeepers. You're describing a situation where that CFO only needs two or three accountants and bookkeepers to run the business and would lay off two or three people.

It IS about headcount in a lot of cases.

[jackfranklyn]

Fair enough - I'm probably biased because I mostly see small practices (1-3 people) where headcount can't really shrink further. In that context it's about throughput per person. But you're right that in a larger org with a CFO making staffing decisions, the efficiency gains get captured as cost savings rather than more clients served. The 5-to-3 scenario you describe is realistic and happening now.

[Sammi]

I keep seeing that small teams or individuals are getting most of the productivity gains from new ai.

Small teams or individuals that learn to use ai well can outpace larger teams, even if the larger teams also use ai, because communication / coordination overhead grows faster than team size. Tasks that before needed large teams to get done, can now be done by smaller teams.

Large Knowledge work teams have lost their competitive advantage.

I see this as a business opportunity for small actors. Every large knowledge work team that doesn't quickly adapt and downsize itself, is now something you can disrupt as a small team or individual.

[jama211]

Or they’d keep the same number of people and increase total value output. Businesses tend to like the idea of growth more than cost cutting after all.

[oefrha]

People don’t suddenly eat more food due to AI. That are a lot of industries with bounded total demand.

[Ensorceled]

> Businesses tend to like the idea of growth more than cost cutting after all.

I would offer as counter to this view: massive layoffs across the early adopters of AI, the tech giants.

[catmanjan]

However good growth is finite unless you also believe in immigration and debt