As I've said before: AI mandates, like RTO mandates, are just another way to "quiet fire" people, or at least "quiet renegotiate" their employment.

That said, AI resistance is real too. We see it on this forum. It's understandable because the hype is all about replacing people, which will naturally make them defensive, whereas the narrative should be about amplifying them.

A well-intentioned AI mandate would either come with a) training and/or b) dedicated time to experiment and figuring out what works well for you. Instead what we're seeing across the industry is "You MUST use AI to do MORE with LESS while we layoff even more people and move jobs overseas."

My cynical take is, this is an intentional strategy to continue culling headcount, except overindexing on people seen as unaligned with the AI future of the company.