The power of AI continues to grow… but there’s still hope for us. It’s about upgrading your own workflows with an AI sidekick, rather than waiting to be left behind.
If you haven’t yet registered for Monday’s demo, where I showcase our latest AI engine, then you need to get on it.
This will be the first time I show our new AI system up and running.
We call it ATLAS, and it specialises in mapping the market for you, allowing man and machine to work together.
If you want to see what that actually looks like in practice, you can secure your place here:
[Register for the ATLAS Demo – Monday, 5pm]
Because it does feel like a man vs machine moment.
Australia’s latest labour statistics feel like another brick in the wall.
Australia’s unemployment rate jumped to 4.5% in April (up from 4.3% in March).
With 33,000 more people out of work in a single month, we’re facing the sharpest one-month deterioration we’ve seen since early 2020.
Now it’s not all panic. Zooming out, a 0.2% point move in a single month isn’t cause for alarm.
Labour data is often noisy, and seasonal adjustments can distort the picture. But the direction of travel has been consistent for over a year now.
This time last year, unemployment was around 4.1%. And it’s been a slow and steady creep higher.
So what’s behind it?
Some of it is the usual cyclical stuff. Slowing consumer spending, cautious hiring, and the lagged effects of higher interest rates are working their way through the economy.
But layered on top of the murky macro picture is possibly something structural, and it’s becoming harder to ignore.
The AI Layoff Wave Arrives on the ASX
WiseTech Global, one of Australia’s most prominent tech companies, sent those dreaded letters to employees this week.
The logistics software firm announced in February that it would cut roughly 2,000 roles across 40 countries. That’s nearly 30% of its 7,000-strong workforce.
The reason given was blunt. AI has changed how work gets done.
Staff have spent three months in limbo waiting to learn their fate, while morale has reportedly been at rock bottom.
A particularly telling detail emerged this week. Internal emails to WiseTech’s China-based employees quietly swapped the phrase ‘AI transformation’ for ‘global transformation.’
This was likely in response to a recent Chinese court ruling that awarded compensation to a tech worker who was sacked and replaced by AI.
WiseTech said the language differences reflected ‘different legal and regulatory requirements’ across jurisdictions.
But whether it’s CBA, WiseTech or Atlassian, the message to investors is the same: companies are restructuring around AI, and humans are being shown the door.
Meta’s Purge
WiseTech isn’t alone. Across the Pacific, Meta began laying off 8,000 employees on Wednesday — about 10% of its global workforce — as part of its own transformation.
The layoffs came despite Meta posting record revenue last quarter, which made the cuts feel less like belt-tightening and more like a strategic pivot.
On that, Mark Zuckerberg is now calling Meta an ‘AI-first’ company.
This has a sweet irony for those who remember the US$80 billion hole in the ground that was ‘The Metaverse’.
Still, Zuck has called AI ‘the most consequential technology of our lifetimes’ and is putting his money where his mouth is.
Meta plans to spend as much as US$145 billion this year — more than double its 2025 outlay — largely on AI infrastructure.
On top of that, another 7,000 staff were reassigned to new AI initiatives, a process that internally staff are jokingly calling ‘the draft.’
Meanwhile, Cisco cut 4,000 jobs last week for the same reason. Microsoft, Block, and Coinbase have all made similar moves recently.
In each case, the framing is the same: AI is making certain roles redundant, and companies that don’t restructure now risk falling behind.
Man (with or vs) Machine?
There’s a tension in these stories that investors need to sit with. The companies doing the firing are, in many cases, the same ones reporting strong earnings and pouring record capital into AI.
A man-versus-machine framing may be tempting here, but it misses the point.
New technology has always impacted how we live and work; this cycle is nothing new.
The workers most at risk aren’t the ones competing against AI, they’re the ones ignoring it.
The employees at WiseTech and Meta who survive these cuts will be the ones who learned to use AI as a tool, rather than treating it as someone else’s problem.
That pattern will likely repeat across many sectors here in Australia. On our end, we’re already seeing it creep into finance.
Market data and information flows are accelerating. Algorithms now sway markets and reprice stocks and sectors faster than any human can process.
It’s all a bit chaotic.
So, we’ve been developing something to help you cut through it all.
It’s called ATLAS.
This isn’t a trading bot.
ATLAS is a new AI tool built specifically for mapping the ASX. Mapping where momentum is flowing in Aussie small-caps before the broader market catches up.
No guesswork, no noise — just a clean, up-to-date read on where the strongest opportunities are forming.
This Monday at 5pm, we’re going live. You’ll see exactly how ATLAS turns market chaos into clear, actionable signals, as it happens.
Regards,
Charlie Ormond,
ATLAS and Altucher’s Investment Network Australia
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