Think layoffs have been bad this year? Bosses warn that job axe will swing for millions of heads in 2026

The robots are coming for even more jobs next year. 

A new survey of America’s top marketing chiefs suggests companies are preparing to cut staff as they lean harder on artificial intelligence — a warning that AI’s biggest impact won’t be chatbots or viral deepfakes, but layoffs.

In November, executive search firm Spencer Stuart asked 90 chief marketing officers how aggressively they plan to use AI to shrink payrolls, the Wall Street Journal reported. 

More than one in three executives said that they expect to hand out pink slips in the next 12 to 24 months as they deploy more computer agents. 

The trend is even worse among bigger companies. 

Nearly half the executives at firms worth more than $20billion said they’re planning significant job cuts. 

Spencer Stuart’s survey — which focused on corporate America’s vast marketing workforce, including copywriters, graphic designers, social media managers, data analysts, and PR staff — worsens the already bleak outlook for American workers.

Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 7.8 million Americans are unemployed, the highest number in four years. 

It comes as several massive tech companies have recently laid off thousands of workers, hiring has slowed, and private jobs data suggest that small businesses are quickly slashing staff.

And now, according to the survey, the outlook could sour even more.  

The executives said there were three main reasons they would slash jobs: to fix pandemic-era over-hiring, to prepare for a slowing economy, and to launch more internal AI products. 

There are more than 6 million Americans with marketing roles, according to the American Marketing Association.

The news also comes as America’s biggest bosses say job cuts will multiply for workers who don’t learn how to use AI tools now.  

‘AI will eliminate jobs,’ Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, America’s biggest bank, warned during an interview on Fox Business.  

‘My advice to people would be critical thinking. Learn skills. Learn how to be good at communicating and how to write. You’ll have plenty of jobs.’ 

Doug McMillon, the top boss at Walmart; Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford; and Beth Galetti, the top HR lead at Amazon, have all issued similar warnings. 

But Abigail Wright, a senior business advisor at the National Chamber of Commerce, told the Daily Mail that she believes the warnings from top leaders about AI-driven job losses are overblown. 

‘The real transformation is task-level, not job-level,’ she said. ‘Workers who learn how to direct fast AI, instead of compete with it, will be the most resilient.’ 

She also said that the majority of marketing jobs appear safe for now. Instead, she argued that AI is helping make faster editorial decisions rather than replacing employees.  

But Americans have already started to see the work of some robot marketers. 

This year, Coca-Cola’s iconic ‘Holidays Are Coming’ ad campaign — featuring snowy landscapes, big red trucks, twinkling holiday lights, and polar bears — was crafted by AI. 

The soda company generated the ad with robots again this year. 

Other giant companies like McDonald’s, Amazon, Heinz, BMW, Nike, Adobe, Salesforce, Starbucks, Nutella, and Svedka have also produced AI-generated video ads.