Saying that "we're firing to use AI" makes you look like you have ROI on your AI investments and you're keeping up.

In fact there are possibly other macro-economic effects at play:

1. The inability to deduct engineering for tax purposes in the year they were spent: "Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) from 2017, the law requires companies to amortize (spread out) all domestic R&D expenses, including software development costs, over five years, starting in tax years after December 31, 2021, instead of deducting them immediately. This means if you spend $100,000 on software development in 2023, you can only deduct 1/5th (or $20,000) each year over five years"

2. End of zero-interest rates.

3. Pandemic era hiring bloat - let's be honest we hired too many non-technical people, companies are still letting attrition take place (~10%/yr where I am) instead of firing.

4. Strong dollar. My company is moving seats to Canada, Ireland, and India instead of hiring in the US. Getting 1.5-2 engineers in Ireland instead of 1 senior on the US west coast.

Otherwise AI is an accelerator to make more money, increase profits and efficiency. Yes it has a high cost, but so does/did Cloud, every SaaS product we've bought/integrated.