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FEATURED ClickUp Replaces Hundreds of Workers With 3,000 AI Agents — and Offers Remaining Staff Million-Dollar SalariesThe $4 billion productivity platform ClickUp just drew a line in the sand. CEO Zeb Evans announced the company has laid off 22% of its workforce — hundreds of employees — and deployed roughly 3,000 internal AI agents to take over their functions. The remaining employees? Evans says they’ll be eligible for million-dollar salary bands if they deliver outsized impact using AI. Evans framed the move as a structural transformation toward what he calls a “100x org” — a company where AI-augmented workers produce 100 times the output of traditional teams. “The people that automate their jobs with AI will always have a job,” he said. Why this matters for your business: ClickUp isn’t a tech giant — it’s a $4B SaaS company, the kind of mid-market success story many of our readers aspire to be. The message is unambiguous: AI agents aren’t coming for jobs generally; they’re coming for jobs at companies like yours. But the flip side is equally important — the humans who learn to orchestrate AI agents are about to become extraordinarily valuable. A recent Gartner survey adds context: roughly 80% of companies using autonomous AI have already cut jobs, though findings suggest some reductions haven’t yet translated to financial returns. Intuit also announced 3,000+ layoffs this month to refocus on AI. Meanwhile, startup Polsia operates with just one employee and raised $30 million at a $250 million valuation — running entirely on AI automation. |
Workday Debuts AI Agents for IT Support and Travel-to-Expense AutomationWorkday rolled out Sana for ITSM and a new Travel Agent, embedding AI agents directly into its enterprise platform. The ITSM agent handles IT support tickets autonomously, while the Travel Agent manages the full journey from booking flights to filing expense reports. For finance and HR leaders already using Workday, these agents plug into existing workflows — no separate integration needed. The announcement came alongside Workday’s latest earnings, which beat expectations and lifted the stock after a prolonged slump. |
Persistent Systems and Kong Partner to Solve AI Governance at ScaleAs enterprises move AI agents from pilot projects to production, governance becomes the bottleneck. Persistent Systems (27,500 employees, 21 countries) and API platform Kong announced a strategic partnership to build a unified governance layer for agentic AI. The solution handles centralized access management, PII protection, observability, and policy-driven safeguards across APIs, AI services, and data systems. The pitch: stop treating each AI agent as a one-off experiment and start managing them as part of a governed ecosystem. |
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Sam Altman Walks Back ‘Jobs Apocalypse’ — Says He Was Wrong About AI Replacing WorkersIn a striking reversal, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman — who once said AI would “probably replace most of the jobs people do today” — now says he’s “delighted to be wrong.” Speaking at a Commonwealth Bank of Australia conference on Tuesday, Altman admitted: “I don’t think we’re going to have the kind of jobs apocalypse that some of the companies in our space advocate or talk about… I thought there would have been more impact on entry-level white-collar jobs being eliminated by now than has actually happened.” He credited the “human part” of employment — the fact that people care about interacting with other people — as the reason his predictions missed the mark. The timing is notable. OpenAI is preparing for a blockbuster IPO targeting a $1 trillion valuation, while Anthropic’s Dario Amodei continues to warn that half of entry-level white-collar jobs could vanish within five years. As AI Policy Network’s Peter Wildeford told TIME, it’s “hard to say whether they’ve actually changed their forecasts… or whether they’re just trying to change the narrative.” For business leaders, the real takeaway: AI adoption is happening slower than the hype cycle suggests, but the companies actively deploying it — like ClickUp — are already restructuring around it. |
DuckDuckGo Downloads Surge 30% as Users Flee Google’s AI-Powered SearchGoogle’s aggressive AI search overhaul is triggering a consumer backlash — and DuckDuckGo is the beneficiary. New data shows DuckDuckGo’s US app installs rose an average of 18.1% week-over-week between May 20-25, peaking at 30.5%. iOS growth was even sharper, averaging 33% and hitting 69.9% at the peak. Traffic to DuckDuckGo’s AI-free portal (noai.duckduckgo.com) rose an average of 22.7%. CEO Gabriel Weinberg didn’t mince words: “Google is force-feeding AI with no way to opt out… their results are getting worse, not better.” DuckDuckGo still holds only about 2% of the US search market, but the trend line matters — users are actively seeking AI-free alternatives. |
Illinois Passes Landmark AI Safety Bill — Third State to Regulate Frontier ModelsIllinois is poised to become the third major state to regulate powerful AI models, following California and New York. Senate Bill 315 passed the Illinois Senate 52-5 and requires developers with revenues over $500 million to implement transparency frameworks, hire third-party auditors, and report on catastrophic risk capabilities. OpenAI and Anthropic testified in support, pushing for a unified national standard. Critics warn the third-party audit requirement is expensive for startups and that the $500 million revenue threshold may age poorly as AI capabilities accelerate. The compliance deadline was extended to 2028 with amendments clarifying audit protocols. For businesses in Illinois — or those serving Illinois customers — this adds another layer to a growing patchwork of state-level AI regulation. |
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