Atlassian says Australian employees axed in mass redundancies, denies AI is replacing jobs
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Major Australian technology firm Atlassian has confirmed that Australian staff were impacted by its major job cuts this week, but denied that jobs were being replaced by AI.
This story first appeared on HR Leader’s sister brand, Cyber Daily.
On 30 July, Atlassian CEO and co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes notified staff through a pre-recorded video that jobs were being terminated and that staff would need to wait 15 minutes to receive an email determining their future at the company.
Now, an Atlassian spokesperson has said that the decision to release 150 staff affected Australian workers.
“We have made this decision after implementing improvements to the customer experience across our platform and tools, resulting in a significant reduction in support needs,” the company said.
“While we’re proud of this momentum, it leaves us with more capacity than needed to deliver strong customer support. [The] changes impact 150 teammates across the US, Australia, India, Germany, Canada, and the UK.”
The company reiterated that its growth led to the company outgrowing the needs of its customer support team. However, Atlassian addressed media claims that the jobs would be replaced by AI, saying that while it has empowered its customer service offering with AI, the jobs are not going to be replaced by the technology.
“Customers are … able to self-service through the embedding of AI in our contact form, but it’s primarily because our customers need less help with the product. These roles are not being replaced by AI,” it said.
That being said, with the company downsizing its customer service workforce and instead bolstering its offering with AI, it thus stands to reason that Atlassian is moving in a direction where AI plays a greater role in the workforce, and staff are therefore not needed in the same capacity.
Just hours before the termination announcement, former Atlassian co-CEO and co-founder Scott Farquhar told the Australian Press Club that Australia needs to forget “jobs from the past” and should embrace the Australian AI revolution.
Atlassian closely follows Commonwealth Bank (CBA), which culled at least 45 jobs as it makes room for AI.
The country’s largest bank said it would be making at least 45 roles redundant in the wake of its push to use AI, and only a month after it announced that it had launched a new customer assistance AI voice bot system.
“Our investment in technology, including AI, is making it easier and faster for customers to get help, especially in our call centres,” a CBA spokesman said regarding the voice bot.
“By automating simple queries, our teams can focus on more complex customer queries that need empathy and experience.
“To meet the changing needs of our customers ... we review the skills we need and how we’re organised to deliver the best customer experiences and outcomes. That means some roles and work can change.”