AI Transition Specialist Among 340 Employees Notified of Layoff by AI System She Helped Implement

SAN JOSE—Six months after enterprise software firm Conduit Systems created the position of AI Transition Specialist to “ensure affected employees experience restructuring with dignity and personalized support,” the role was eliminated Tuesday by the AI workforce-management agent the specialist had herself selected, configured, and approved for production.

The specialist, who joined Conduit in January following a 14-year career in human resources, was one of 340 employees notified via the system’s automated separation workflow. Her notification letter contained a factual error in her name.

“We are deeply grateful for [FIRSTNAME]’s contributions during this critical transformation period,” the letter read.

Conduit said the system processed all 340 notifications in 1.3 seconds, freeing the equivalent of 0.4 full-time HR employees, a capacity the company said would be reinvested in AI capability expansion.

The second reduction in force follows a 2,100-person layoff in March, during which the specialist had personally conducted more than 60 one-on-one calls to explain Conduit’s AI-first strategy and answer questions about severance. Colleagues said she had recently begun advocating for an internal safeguard requiring AI systems to flag employee accounts before processing separations in AI implementation roles. The proposal was still under review at the time of her separation.

In a LinkedIn post published Wednesday, she wrote that she remained “passionate about the intersection of technology and human dignity” and was exploring opportunities in AI ethics and AI safety advocacy.

Her severance was calculated incorrectly.

“Every affected individual receives the same level of care and attention we would want for ourselves,” said a Conduit spokesperson, whose statement was generated by the same system.