Cisco CEO Tells Workers Uncomfortable With AI Change to Keep Up

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins has a blunt message for employees uneasy about artificial intelligence: "If you're an employee who is uncomfortable with a lot of change and a constant dynamic environment, nothing's going to feel good right now." Robbins made the comments in a recent interview with Inc. "The pace of change is too fast, too dynamic, and they're going to have to figure out their role in this world we're living in."

The leader of the $415 billion company, which employs more than 80,000 people worldwide, said industry leaders are the real pacemakers of the AI era—and employees "have no choice but to at least keep up." Robbins added that workers are not alone in struggling to keep their heads above water. At an early-morning Business Roundtable meeting, he found that every CEO is worried about the speed of the technology and whether they can keep up, alongside cybersecurity concerns about protecting their businesses.

Even the companies building the most advanced AI systems are voicing caution. Anthropic's Dario Amodei and OpenAI's Sam Altman have recently called on companies to slow down their pace of building models. "When the people building the most advanced models are raising questions about the pace of development, we should listen," Robbins said.

Robbins resists AI as a headcount-cutting tool

Despite the anxiety rippling through the workforce, Robbins argues that AI should not serve as an excuse to shrink headcount. AI is widely promoted as a productivity engine—taking over mundane tasks, writing code, handling customer calls, and analyzing vast datasets. Robbins maintains that it is better to keep staffers in seats and boost productivity than to cut workers just to maintain the same level of success.

"The most innovative companies in the world shouldn't view this as a cost-reduction efficiency play," Robbins said in the Inc. interview. "You should view this as an innovation enhancement play. You can do exactly what you're doing today, perhaps with 20 percent fewer people—and I'm making that number up. Or you can do 20 percent more and deliver more innovation to your customers with the same number of people you have today."

Cisco's own record complicates that message. The company cut around 4,000 jobs earlier this year as part of a restructuring toward AI and related growth areas, Reuters reported. At the time, Robbins reasoned: "The companies that will win in the AI era will be those with focus, urgency, and the discipline to continuously shift investment toward the areas where demand and long-term value creation are strongest."

The broader layoff wave

Cisco is far from alone in rethinking its workforce around AI. Earlier this year, $46 billion fintech company Block reduced its workforce by around 40% after CEO Jack Dorsey and other leaders questioned how many humans the company would need if it were built today with the latest AI tools. More than 4,000 of Block's 10,000 employees were affected.

In July, Microsoft laid off about 4,800 employees, with its Xbox division hit hardest. Amy Coleman, executive vice president and chief people officer at Microsoft, attributed the cuts to the tech sector's AI overhaul. While she clarified that no dismissed roles will be replaced by AI, she admitted that "AI is changing how work gets done."

Some experts have challenged the layoff narrative, arguing the cost-cutting stems from pandemic overhiring rather than an AI takeover. Others see genuine substitution at work. Goldman Sachs economists predicted that the technology has erased around 16,000 net jobs per month over the past year. AI substitution wiped out roughly 25,000 roles every month during that period, while the technology's enhancements added back about 9,000. Entry-level Gen Z workers, exposed to AI substitution, have been hit hardest.

Fortune reached out to Cisco for comment.

For now, Robbins' stance amounts to a bet that the winners of the AI era will be companies that deploy the technology to do 20 percent more with the same workforce—though Cisco's own 4,000-job restructuring shows how hard that line is to hold when investors demand AI-driven efficiency.