Show Notes
A good friend of Malcolm — from the automotive industry — said it to his face: "Malcolm, your podcast is nice and all, but in our auto sector, literally nothing is moving. Nobody is firing people because of AI." Wrong. So wrong. This episode is the answer.
Here's the line that anchors the whole episode: AI doesn't really eliminate jobs. What it does — it eliminates ROLES. And in 2026, the companies that survive are the ones that hire three completely new types of roles that didn't exist two years ago.
Look at General Motors right now: 500-600 IT positions gone in one wave. Plus the 1,000 software engineers they cut two years ago. Multiple parallel waves over 18 months. The "important ones who are supposed to roll out AI" — exactly them.
And it's not just GM. The pattern runs from San Francisco to Munich. Siemens. SAP. Amazon (14,000 corporate roles last year + another 16,000 this year). Microsoft (15,000 + 15,000, three rounds planned). Workday. CrowdStrike. Block. These aren't trees being trimmed — these are entire forests being clear-cut.
🤖 What is an AI Agent, anyway?
Malcolm's working definition, after his 76-year-old dad visited last weekend and watched a live Claude Code demo: "An AI Agent is an AI with arms." It doesn't just chat — it executes. It opens files, writes code, files tickets, books meetings. His dad's reaction watching Claude Code work autonomously: stunned silence, then "this changes everything." If a 76-year-old gets it in 10 minutes, your CFO has no excuse.
🎯 The Three Roles You MUST Hire in 2026
- AI Agent Trainer — Not people who "use AI." People who train AI agents to do company-specific work. Completely different skill. This is the new prompt engineer + ops hybrid.
- Buy-vs-Build Specialist — Someone who can look at a problem and call it: do we license a SaaS tool, or do we build it ourselves now that AI makes building 10× cheaper? Wrong call = millions wasted either way.
- AI Teacher / Internal Enablement — Someone who can teach other humans how to use AI. Sounds basic. Biggest leverage point in the entire company. Without this role, your $200/month Claude licenses sit unused.
🚦 The Red-Yellow-Green Traffic Light System
Score every candidate on the three skills:
- 🟢 Green: All three — can train agents, can judge build/buy, can teach others
- 🟡 Yellow: Two out of three (hire and develop the third)
- 🔴 Red: Zero out of three → 99% of all hires being made in 2026 right now sit here
📋 Stop Running 1990s Interviews
If you're still asking "tell me three strengths and three weaknesses" — you are running an interview format from the 90s in a market that has fundamentally changed. Ask instead:
- "Have you trained anyone in your last role? Show me the deck."
- "Teach me something about AI that I don't already know."
- "Share your screen — show me LIVE how you use AI."
The screen-share question alone filters out 80% of "AI-savvy" candidates in the first 30 seconds.
⚠️ The Uncomfortable Truth for HR
If you sit in HR and you don't have a traffic light system — you are next on the red list. Sit with that for a second. Because the structured, repetitive screening work HR has been doing for 20 years is exactly the work AI agents do best now.
Malcolm acknowledges Klarna as a "bad example" — they fired customer service, rolled out AI, then had to re-hire. The Salesforce paradox. But this is becoming the exception, not the rule. The pattern is shifting from "fire then re-hire" to "don't re-hire in the first place." Senior retires? Don't backfill. Junior asks for a repetitive data task? That task doesn't exist anymore. Harvard Business Review has documented this: since ChatGPT, junior hiring for structured work has dropped significantly.
⏱️ Timestamps
- 00:00 — Cold open: For my friend in automotive who said "nothing is happening"
- 02:30 — GM: 500-600 IT roles + the 1,000 from two years ago
- 05:00 — The pattern: SF to Munich — Siemens, SAP, Amazon, Microsoft
- 07:30 — Klarna and the Salesforce paradox (fire then re-hire)
- 10:00 — Jobs vs Roles — the distinction that changes everything
- 12:00 — My 76-year-old dad meets Claude Code — "AI with arms"
- 14:30 — The three new roles you MUST hire
- 17:00 — The Red-Yellow-Green traffic light
- 19:00 — Stop running interviews from the 90s
- 20:30 — Why HR is next on the red list
- 22:00 — Closing: Leoben, Manuel, Simona, half miracles
🎙️ About the Host
Malcolm Werchota runs AI adoption programs for companies across Europe. After 15+ years at Novartis and Schlumberger, today's focus: AI without the bullshit. Lecturer at ESADE and HSLU. Studied in Leoben.
🚀 Resources for Executives
📬 Contact
📰 Sources
- TechCrunch + Transport Topics — General Motors IT Layoffs 2026
- Amazon Corporate Layoffs reporting (14k + 16k planned)
- Microsoft Workforce Adjustments under Satya Nadella
- Harvard Business Review — The ChatGPT Effect on Junior Hiring
- Gartner + McKinsey — AI Role Redesign Frameworks
Tags: #AI #AICookbook #AIAdoption #JobMarket #FutureOfWork #RoleRedesign #GM #Siemens #SAP #Amazon #Microsoft #Automotive #HR #Recruiting #Hiring #AIAgent #BuyVsBuild #Klarna #werchota #ChiefAIAcademy #TheAICookbookShow