Two years ago, Suumit Shah, CEO of the Indian company Dukaan, made headlines around the world by announcing that he had laid off nearly 80% of his employees. The reason? They refused to adopt artificial intelligence tools in their daily work. Today, he claims his decision was the right one.
A radical bet that divided opinion
At the time of the announcement, the reaction was immediate and mostly negative. Social media erupted with criticism, accusing Shah of inhumanity and short-sightedness. How could a CEO justify firing the vast majority of his workforce simply because they were reluctant to use new tools?
Shah’s argument was straightforward: AI was capable of handling most of the customer support tasks that his employees were performing. The chatbot he deployed could resolve 85% of customer queries in under two minutes, compared to an average of over two hours with human agents. The cost savings were enormous.
Two years later, Shah maintains that his company is more efficient than ever. Revenue has grown, customer satisfaction has improved, and the small team that remains is focused on high-value tasks that AI cannot handle.
But the story is not without nuance. Several former employees have spoken out about the brutal manner in which the layoffs were conducted. And industry observers point out that Shah’s case is not easily generalizable — what works for a tech startup may not apply to larger, more complex organizations.
Nevertheless, Shah’s experiment has become a reference point in the ongoing debate about AI’s impact on employment. Whether you see him as a visionary or a cautionary tale depends largely on where you stand in that debate.