Half of tech firms plotting restructures as AI hype bites (www.theregister.com)

A Source Global Research study of 150 consulting clients finds AI is driving widespread organizational change across the technology, media and telecoms (TMT) sector: roughly 60% of tech firms expect a full restructure in the next 18 months, 54% plan to change their target operating model, and 60% are considering M&A. The report also notes a 7% rise in global TMT consulting revenue to $8.25 billion as companies move from fiscal caution to more ambitious AI-led investment. Telecoms conversations skew toward upgrading infrastructure, media firms are prioritizing emerging technologies, and many M&A plans are being driven by talent shortages rather than product gaps. For the AI/ML community this signals surging demand for strategy, data engineering, modelops and governance expertise as firms rewire processes, automation and customer-facing systems. Real-world impacts are already visible: Salesforce cut about 4,000 support roles after deploying AI agents, redeploying hundreds into sales and professional services. Technical implications include accelerated productionization of models, heavier investment in data pipelines, monitoring, security and compliance, and a shift in hiring toward engineering, ML operations and applied AI roles. The net effect will be fewer routine support positions but more opportunities in building, scaling and governing AI systems.