HP plans to save millions by laying off thousands, ramping up AI use (arstechnica.com)

HP Inc. announced plans to cut 4,000–6,000 jobs and accelerate AI deployments to realize roughly $1 billion in annualized gross run-rate savings by the end of fiscal 2028. CEO Enrique Lores said reductions will mainly affect product development, internal operations and customer support as HP pursues “platform simplification, programs consolidation and productivity measures” tied to digital transformation. The company frames these moves as structural cost savings — durable reductions driven by automation, workforce changes and streamlined platforms — and expects the layoffs to be completed by fiscal 2028. For the AI/ML community the move underlines two trends: enterprises are rapidly shifting from pilots to production AI to cut costs and reconfigure teams, and customer-facing and operational roles are most exposed to automation. Technically this implies increased demand for model deployment, MLOps, conversational agents, knowledge bases and process-automation tooling, plus emphasis on measurement (productivity, CSAT) and platform integration. It also intensifies policy and workforce debates already sparked by similar moves at Salesforce, Amazon, Intuit and others, increasing pressure for reskilling programs, responsible deployment practices and scrutiny of how generative and automation systems replace human labor.