GM Is Swapping Out 600 IT Workers for People With Strong AI Skills
General Motors has cut more than 600 salaried IT employees, over 10% of its entire IT department, in what the company is framing as a deliberate rebuild of its technology workforce around artificial intelligence. The GM AI layoffs, first reported by Bloomberg and later confirmed to TechCrunch, are not a blanket cost-cutting exercise. GM is already hiring replacements, just with a very different skill set.
“GM is transforming its Information Technology organization to better position the company for the future,” the automaker said in a statement, stopping short of specifics. But a person familiar with the situation told TechCrunch exactly what GM is looking for: AI-native development, data engineering and analytics, cloud-based engineering, agent and model development, prompt engineering, and new AI workflows. In plain terms, the company wants people who can build AI systems from the ground up, not those who simply use AI as a productivity shortcut.
This is not GM’s first move in this direction. Back in August 2024, the company cut roughly 1,000 software workers as it began tightening its focus on AI-driven priorities. The current GM AI layoffs follow that same logic, just at a sharper, more targeted level.
The pace of internal change at GM has been notable. Since Sterling Anderson, co-founder of autonomous trucking startup Aurora, was brought on as chief product officer in May 2025, the company’s software organisation has undergone major reshaping. Three senior tech executives departed last November as Anderson pushed to consolidate GM’s technology divisions under one roof. GM has since brought in Behrad Toghi, formerly of Apple, as AI lead, and Rashed Haq as vice president of autonomous vehicles. Haq previously served as head of AI and robotics at Cruise, the self-driving unit GM acquired and later shut down.
What makes the GM AI layoffs significant beyond the headline numbers is what they signal for the broader industry. This is not a company slapping AI tools onto an existing workforce and calling it transformation. It is actively dismantling one talent structure and replacing it with another, built from the ground up around AI. The roles GM is prioritising, including agent development and model engineering, point directly at where large enterprise demand is heading as AI moves from pilot projects into core operations.
For workers in traditional IT roles across the industry, GM’s moves are a warning worth paying attention to.
