Is Refusing to Use AI the New Way to Get Laid Off?

Apparently, yes, at least if you worked at IgniteTech. Back in 2023, CEO Eric Vaughan looked at his staff and said, “Adapt to AI… or don’t bother coming in Monday,” and he meant it. He fired 80% of the company worldwide because too many employees decided AI wasn’t for them. Two years later, Vaughan says he’s sleeping just fine at night, pointing to fat profit margins as proof that trimming the workforce wasn’t just savage, it was “necessary.”

Vaughan had declared AI an “existential threat” to the business. To prove his point, he launched AI Mondays, where everyone from IT to HR to probably the poor office intern had to drop their usual work and focus entirely on AI. Imagine walking in on Monday ready to do payroll and being told, “Forget checks, today you’re prompt-engineering.” IgniteTech even threw money at the problem, paying for company-wide AI tools, sponsoring classes, and flying in outside experts. They handed out AI snacks, drinks, and free rides, but a lot of employees still said, “Nah, I’m good.”

Some workers actively resisted, especially in technical roles, while others just flat-out refused to join in. And it wasn’t just IgniteTech. A writer's report later revealed that about one in three employees admitted to sabotaging AI projects. Millennials and Gen Z were the most likely to pull the plug, which is hilarious considering they’re usually the ones lecturing their parents on how to use Google Drive. Vaughan saw the resistance not as a quirky rebellion but as a giant wall keeping the company from its future. So he did what CEOs do best: downsized harder than an Amazon cardboard box.

The rebuild was quick. Vaughan brought in a Chief AI Officer (because obviously you need someone with “AI” in their title now), reorganized the company, and kept only the people who were on board with his robot revolution. That smaller AI-friendly team launched two shiny new patent-pending products, including an AI-powered email tool. By the end of 2024, IgniteTech was bragging about 75% profit margins, which is basically like saying, “See, I told you so,” but with extra zeros.

Of course, Vaughan admits this wasn’t exactly a feel-good story. Thousands of people lost their jobs, morale took a nosedive, and the company had to reinvent itself overnight. He doesn’t recommend that other CEOs go full Thanos with their workforce, but he does argue that AI adoption is less about software and more about belief. If your team doesn’t buy in, no amount of shiny new tools will save you.

This is where a lot of companies are headed. AI adoption is no longer about whether the software works; it’s about whether people are willing to use it without mutiny. For IgniteTech, the refusal to adapt sparked one of the most dramatic corporate “plot twists” in years. Thousands of jobs gone, profits soaring. It’s proof that when it comes to AI, the real fight isn’t man versus machine, it’s man versus “I don’t feel like learning another tool.”

Here’s the question for you: if your boss announced AI Mondays, would you show up with enthusiasm, roll your eyes and fake it, or quietly sabotage the system while applying to jobs on Indeed?

Is refusing to use AI career suicide, or are we just letting companies disguise layoffs as “innovation”? Drop your take.

- Matt Masinga