Are you better value for money than AI?

Comment AI vendors are starting to say the quiet part out loud. As technology advances, it seems more about controlling costs and headcount.

OpenAI chief financial officer (CFO) Sarah Friar was reported discussing the possibility of pricier tiers for the company's services and justifying four-figure tiers – quite a jump from the $200 tier recently announced – by working out the value of the service provided by the assistant and charging accordingly.

This raises the question: why recruit somebody if an AI can assist lawyers as a virtual paralegal, help academics with their work, or do something as mundane as booking travel?

Friar reportedly said: "How might you have had to finance that otherwise? Would you have had to go out and hire more people? How do you think about the replacement cost to some degree, and then how do we create a fair pricing for that?"

The Information recently reported that Microsoft had begun to highlight the payroll benefits of AI as allowing enterprises to slow or stop hiring staff while making it easier to lay off workers and still maintain productivity.

The public face of the Windows giant's marketing is all about helping employees save time, but it is not hard to see how some enterprises might look at all that time supposedly saved and then at their headcount...

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While you'd expect the major tech vendors to talk up the productivity benefits of the AI services they've poured so much money into, employers have been thinking about how introducing the technology could mean potentially paying fewer human beings. In 2023, Philip Jansen, then CEO of BT, estimated that 10,000 staffers could go as a result of automated digitization. "We will be a huge beneficiary of AI," he said.

A year ago, billionaire Elon Musk predicted during an interview with former British prime minister Rishi Sunak that "there will be come a point when no job is needed" and "AI will be able to do everything."

The pricier tier announced by OpenAI, along with Microsoft's reported promotion of AI's headcount-reduction benefits, signals a shift in priorities. Tech giants are now seeking ways to recoup their massive AI investments.

In the past, the rhetoric was all about increasing productivity. Now headcount is coming into focus. Companies like OpenAI have begun to openly acknowledge the implications: why recruit more people when there's an AI for that? And do you really need all those employees?

OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment by The Register. Microsoft did not wish to make a statement on the record. ®