The Culture Assessment AI Is Creating
AI presents a real opportunity for leaders today.
Before we get to the good stuff, Friday’s jobs report looked like a step in the right direction. 178,000 jobs added in March, a rebound from February’s losses. Unemployment held at 4.3%. On the surface, the narrative was recovery.
Of course, as in previous months, the deep dive tells a different story. Health care added 76,000 of those jobs. Construction added 26,000. The sectors doing the hiring are largely insulated from AI disruption. The knowledge work categories where AI is already reshaping how people operate told a quieter story.
Also late last week, Oracle laid off 30,000 employees. Roughly 18% of its global workforce. They did it via 6 a.m. termination emails, with no prior warning from HR or direct managers. Access to company systems was cut immediately. (Even if the layoffs make financial sense, the execution strategy is a long-term culture killer, from our experience.)
Oracle is not a company in distress. Revenue is up 22%. Net income jumped 95% last quarter to $6.13 billion. Remaining performance obligations sit at $523 billion. Oracle isn’t cutting people because business is bad. It’s cutting people to fund AI data centers because the infrastructure bet it requires capital that it can’t generate while keeping people on payroll.
It’s a completely different kind of layoff. It clearly points to a future where the workforce is smarter and smaller.
The Power Users Surprise
On a much more positive note, Gensler just published data regarding AI utilization that’s promising.
Their 2026 Global Workplace Survey covered 16,400 workers across 16 countries. They identified 30% of employees as AI “power users,” people who use AI regularly in both their professional and personal lives. Then they looked at how those workers actually spend their time.
Power users spend 37% of their workweek working alone. Late adopters spend 42%. The most AI-forward workers in the study spend less time in isolation than everyone else. They also spend 12% of their time learning, versus 8% for their peers. They report stronger workplace relationships.
The workers most embedded in AI tools are also the most human-connected.
The story most people are telling about AI at work concludes that more automation means more isolation. Fewer ways to connect. Hollowed-out teams. Less reason to collaborate because the machine handles the handoffs. The Gensler data tells a different story. The people who are best at using these tools are using the time they get back to be with their teams, to learn, to go deeper on work that actually requires them.
What’s driving the difference? It’s not the tools. Every worker in that study had access to AI. What changed is what they had to come back to when the AI handled the routine.
Power users didn’t become collaborative because they adopted AI. They were already in places where collaboration meant something. They had colleagues worth learning from and problems worth thinking harder about. AI gave them more hours, and they knew what to do with them. Workers who hadn’t adopted AI either didn’t have that, or hadn’t built it yet, and more time just meant more of the same.
This is the finding that should matter most to leaders right now.
Smarter, smaller, AND more engaged.
The jobs report question, is AI making my workforce better or just smaller, is actually two separate questions. Whether your workforce gets smaller is partly out of our hands. What people do with the time AI returns is not. That depends entirely on the culture you have within the organization.
If people have real reasons to collaborate and grow, AI will amplify that. If they’re disengaged, working in silos, unclear on what good work looks like, AI amplifies that too. The data on “workslop” makes this concrete: 40% of workers say they’ve received low-quality AI-generated work from a colleague, and 53% admit they’ve sent it. That’s what happens when productivity tools land in a weak culture. The Gensler data is what happens when they land in a strong one.
The fundamental question driving it all is whether your people actually want to be in the same room with each other. Whether they’re learning from one another or just tolerating one another. Whether they have something worth protecting in how they work, or whether AI just exposed that they never really did.
That’s a culture assessment. And it’s one that every organization should be running right now.
The jobs report will tell you what happened to headcount. Oracle will tell you where this is going. Neither one tells you whether the people who stayed are doing anything worth doing.
The difference isn’t the software. It’s the culture.
Links
Gensler Research Institute The full report behind the AI power user findings — 16,400 workers across 16 countries on how AI adoption is shifting how people work, learn, and connect.
Oracle Lays Off Up to 30,000 to Fund AI Data Centers | CNBC
A profitable company with $523 billion in contracted revenue cut 18% of its workforce to fund AI infrastructure, and that distinction matters for how leaders should read this moment.
Why People Create AI “Workslop” and How to Stop It | HBR
40% of workers say they’ve received low-quality, AI-generated work from a colleague, and 53% admit they’ve sent it, costing roughly $186 per employee per month in rework and eroded trust.
How AI Is Changing the Nature of Entry-Level Work | World Economic Forum
Entry-level job postings in the US are down 35% in 18 months, and that matters because entry-level work is where future leaders build judgment.
Reinvention of the CHRO in an AI-Driven Enterprise | BCG
BCG makes the case that CHROs need to become architects of a hybrid workforce, and if they’re not leading the AI conversation, someone else will.
AI Will Rewrite Employee Experience, and Deep Listening Shows How | Forrester
Forrester argues that traditional engagement surveys can’t keep up, and organizations building toward real-time AI-driven listening now will have a meaningful head start.
March 2026 Jobs Report: A Bumpy Road and a Moving Finish Line | Indeed Hiring Lab
The deeper read on Friday’s numbers: job growth rebounded, but it’s been flat for young workers, college-degree holders, and Black workers over the past year.
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