AI’s biggest champions have long argued that the technology will usher in an era of unprecedented productivity gains, richly rewarding workers who use it while firing those who don’t.
Zeb Evans, CEO of interactive software company ClickUp, says that change is imminent. Last Thursday, Evans announced on X that the company, which was last estimated by 2021 at four billion dollars, has laid off 22% of its workforce, however, he pointed out that the reduction was not a way to cut costs, but rather the greater adoption of AI that will take the company to the next level.
“Most of the savings from this change will flow directly back to the people who remain. We will be introducing million dollar salary bands. If you create a big impact using AI, you will be paid outside of the traditional bands,” Evans wrote.
ClickUp recently launched nearly 3,000 internal AI agents to handle a variety of complex tasks on behalf of its employees, according to a Fortune article published a few days ago. Instead of doing the work themselves, employees are now expected to direct these agents and ultimately review the result to ensure it meets the company’s standards.
Evans’ goal, according to his X post, is for AI to turn ClickUp into a “100x org.”
ClickUp is not alone in its hope that AI agents will provide significant productivity gains.
In fact, according to a recent study by Gartner, nearly 80% of companies using automation technology have cut jobs. However, research has found that staff reductions do not translate into meaningful financial returns.
While Gartner’s findings suggest that some companies are using unproven AI as an excuse for downsizing, ClickUp maintains that it is not one of them.
Evans told TechCrunch via email that the startup is seeing productivity gains from AI agents. Not only is ClickUp measuring those strengths internally, but it’s also apparently preparing to incorporate them into its customers’ next product.
“Instead of a token cost game, we play value created and time saved,” Evans wrote.
In recent months, a growing number of companies have begun monitoring employee token usage, using it as a metric to see who is actually using AI tools. But critics argue that “tokenmaxxing”—as the concept is known—is the wrong metric because it simply accumulates the cost of AI.
“People who do their jobs with AI will always have a job,” Evans said in his post. But if AI continues to take over more jobs, ClickUp will end up needing fewer and fewer people, removing those who can’t automate their jobs.
Technical circles have been thinking about this situation for a long time.
One extreme example of a high-profile startup using AI to scale already exists. Polsia, a one-year-old self-service software startup, is run by one person: founder and CEO, Ben Broca. That efficiency is apparently paying off: Polsia recently raised $30 million at a $250 million valuation.
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