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- ✂️More Job Cuts as AI Pressure Grows
✂️More Job Cuts as AI Pressure Grows
Plus: $2,000 AI-Generated Ad Debuts During NBA Finals
Yaro Celis
June 16, 2025
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Monday’s here, and we’re diving into how to stay ahead in a never-changing job market shaped by AI, with automation triggering fresh waves of layoffs. We share strategies to adapt and thrive. Meanwhile, the marketing world is being turned upside down, from fully AI-generated commercials airing during the NBA Finals for just $2k, to TikTok and Meta building tools that help brands ditch ad agencies entirely. All that and more in today’s issue. Stay curious. Stay sharp.
📰 News and Trends.
More Job Cuts as AI Pressure Grows, NY Steps In to Track Impact
AI Push Triggers Job Cuts Across Tech
How Workers Can Stay Relevant in the AI Era
🧰 AI Tools - AI Video
$2,000 AI-Generated Ad Debuts During NBA Finals
🧠 Learning Corner - Sora Tutorials
📰 AI News and Trends
Young people should leverage their familiarity with AI as a key selling point when seeking employment
Google is planning to stop the majority of its work with Scale AI after rival Meta took a 49% stake in Scale and hired its CEO
Amazon to Spend $13 Billion on Australia AI Data Centers
TikTok will let brands generate AI influencer content that mimics what human creators might share.
The latest AI-powered ad tools from Meta, Google, Amazon, Comcast, and others can now automate campaign creation and media buying, threatening the agency model built on human labor and hourly billing.
🌐 Other Tech news
Walmart and Amazon Are Exploring Issuing Stablecoins
Are influencers the only effective way to do marketing today
23andMe Founder Wojcicki Agrees to Pay $305 Million to Buy Bankrupt Business
China Joins US in Brain Implant Race With Clinical Trial
More Job Cuts as AI Pressure Grows, NY Steps In to Track Impact
BT CEO Allison Kirkby signaled that the company may shrink further by 2030 as AI enables greater automation. Already targeting a cut of over 40,000 roles and £3B in costs, Kirkby hinted AI could unlock even leaner operations. Since her February 2024 appointment, BT shares are up 65%, driven by sell-offs and a sharp UK focus.
In the U.S., New York became the first state to require companies to disclose if AI contributed to mass layoffs. A new checkbox on WARN notices asks firms to cite “technological innovation,” including AI, when reporting job cuts. While the measure is nonbinding, experts see it as a first step toward AI labor market regulation.
So far, no companies have reported AI as a cause, likely due to reputational risks. Still, the move reflects growing state-level scrutiny, despite a controversial federal proposal that could block new AI rules for a decade. New York Governor Hochul says her broader AI strategy aims to balance innovation with worker protections using real-world data.
AI Push Triggers Job Cuts Across Tech
BT isn’t alone in slashing jobs as it leans into AI. Several major companies are restructuring their workforce to automate operations and cut costs:
IBM plans to replace 30% of back-office roles (~7,800 jobs) with AI in the coming years.
Duolingo laid off part of its contractor workforce, saying AI now handles content creation faster.
Chegg cut 4% of staff after ChatGPT dented its user growth.
Dropbox let go of 16% of employees to “rebuild the company around AI.”
Accenture is investing $3B in AI and has cut over 19,000 jobs as part of a reorganization.
How Workers Can Stay Relevant in the AI Era
Upskill in AI & Tech: Learn AI basics, prompt engineering, data analysis, or automation tools. Check our daily Learning Corner Section for links.
Focus on Human-Centric Roles: Roles needing empathy, judgment, and leadership, such as product management, strategy, HR, or customer relations, remain less automatable.
Learn to Work With AI: Master tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and AI-powered platforms in your field to boost productivity.
Stay Industry-Aware: Follow AI trends in your sector and be proactive in adapting to changing workflows.
Consider Freelance & Portfolio Careers: Many companies now hire specialists on-demand for AI-aligned projects.
🧰 AI Tools
AI Video
Pika - Text-to-video generation with cinematic style and motion control. Praised for Sora-level quality in short-form videos
Runway Gen-4 - Multi-modal AI for generating and editing high-quality videos from text, images, or clips. Offers real-time generation, video-to-video transformation, and cinematic styles
Sora (by OpenAI) - Generates realistic, story-driven videos from text prompts. Unmatched coherence, realistic motion, and long-form scenes
Synthesia - Create talking-head avatar videos from text in 120+ languages. Great for training video creation, corporate comms, and localization
HeyGen - Turn scripts into an avatar or animated presenter videos. Multi-language voice cloning + lip-syncing
Download our list of 1000+ Tools for free.
$2,000 AI-Generated Ad Debuts During NBA Finals
In a major milestone for AI in advertising, betting platform Kalshi aired a fully AI-generated ad during the NBA Finals — and it reportedly cost just $2,000 to produce.
The bizarre 30-second spot was created by AI filmmaker PJ Accetturo using Google’s Veo 3 text-to-video generator. The ad showcases Kalshi’s real-money prediction markets on events like NBA outcomes, hurricane forecasts, and egg prices. The process took one person, 2–3 days, and involved generating 300–400 clips to select 15 usable ones, slashing production costs by over 95% compared to traditional commercials. Editing was done using tools like CapCut and Premiere Pro.
As Veo 3 and similar AI tools go mainstream, this marks just the beginning of AI-produced ads hitting broadcast TV at scale.
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