A new study removes the AI fig leaf used by tech executives to present the reason for firing their employees and could trigger a wave of employee lawsuits and class actions against the companies.

In the first quarter of 2026 alone, about 81.7 thousand tech employees were laid off worldwide, making it the quarter with the widest volume of layoffs in the industry since the beginning of 2023, and this at a time when the laying-off companies are investing from their second pocket hundreds of billions of dollars in AI infrastructure.

Thus, for example, Meta and Microsoft alone announced the layoff of about 20 thousand employees within 24 hours, according to a report by the CNBC network from last April, while the four giant companies of the sector: Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon, are expected to invest about $700 billion aggregately this year on AI infrastructures. That is to say: The money has not run out, but the employees, it seems, have become redundant.

A study by fintech giant Ramp and workforce company Revelio Labs, published at the end of this past June, pulls the rug out from under the companies' argument that the layoffs stem from AI implementation.

The study shows that companies that made the largest investments in AI actually increased their workforce by about 10% within two years from the day of implementing artificial intelligence in the organization. This is while companies that adopted AI with low intensity or did not implement AI at all experienced a decrease in workforce that stood at about 0.6% on average.

The more surprising figure, which even contradicts the fears of the younger generation in the labor market, shows that the workforce at the entry-level tier in the industry rose by about 12% among companies that adopted AI with high intensity. That is to say, precisely the employees who were presented as the most vulnerable to artificial intelligence and automation are the ones who benefit more from the rise in employment opportunities in companies that invest in AI.

The growth in companies that adopted AI is not limited to one technology department alone, and according to the study's data, a 10.3% increase in workforce was recorded among companies adopting AI in sales, 7.8% in administration, 7.3% in engineering, 6.3% in entry-level engineering, 6.3% in customer service, and 5.6% in the data field, while finance and marketing employees recorded more moderate increases. The operations department was the only one that did not show any significant growth.

The importance of the study, which was authored by economists Ara Kharazian and Ryan Stevens from Ramp and Lisa Simon from the Revelio Labs company, is that it does not rely on surveys or academic estimates but on actual spending data on AI by American corporations.

The study gathered corporate credit card and vendor payment data conducted on the Ramp platform itself from about 22 thousand American corporations, alongside matching them to monthly workforce records of those same companies held by the Revelio Labs workforce company, the partner in the study.

Ramp is considered one of the private companies with the highest valuation in the world in its field and is valued at a worth of about $44 billion as of the year 2026. It manages vendor payments for about 70 thousand organizations, from small startups to Fortune 100 companies, and over 60% of the code of its products is written by its internal AI agent, 'Inspect'.

The company is very closely tied to AI, and the level of adoption of AI tools in its various departments reaches about 99.5%, while it itself does not report as one that laid off employees as part of internal AI adoption, but even continued to recruit.

Dr. Tal Aspir, partner and manager of the AI laboratory at the BDO consulting and accounting firm, told Walla Money that "The study confirms what economists and AI experts accompanying the Israeli tech industry have been saying for months: Pointing the finger at AI as the main factor for layoffs in the innovation industry is an excuse. And now it is also backed by real data.

"In the end, AI is an empowerment tool, and not a replacement tool. Not only does it not lead to layoffs, but it increases the workforce required for companies, as this is a new technology that requires a workforce that knows how to use and operate it. For an empowered employee must first know how to work with the tool that empowers them.

"The process of transitioning to the new skill and knowledge will lead employees who do not adapt themselves to the new technology to be pushed out of the industry, but their place, alongside many other places, will be taken by employees who do adapt themselves."

In the summary of the study, a recommendation was written for tech employees on behalf of the researchers: "If you read headlines in which CEOs blame layoffs on AI – view them with skepticism," and they add advice to young tech professionals entering the job market and trying to choose which company is worth working for, because the data shows that "You should choose precisely the one that truly adopts AI."