I read somewhere that AI is just a cover story/excuse for these layoffs.

If not, then this dude (or his replacement) will be having to re-hire a lot of these people when they finally figure out that over-hyped pattern matching software can’t actually replace employees.

AI layoffs to backfire: Half quietly rehired at lower pay

: Bosses banking on automation? 55% will regret those job cuts

(www.theregister.com)

OPs article was posted in another community and a poster there linked another article about this company. Apparently the whole "we're replacing people with AI minded people" was a sham and in fact it was just a Private Equity company masking their offshoring of most of the jobs.