Klarna said they stopped hiring a year ago because AI solved all their problems [1]. That's why they have 55 job openings right now, obviously [2] (including quite a few listed as "Contractor"; the utterly classic "we fucked up our staffing"). This kind of disconnect isn't even surprising; its exactly what I predict. Business leadership nowadays is so far disconnected from the reality of what's happening day-to-day in their businesses that they say things like this with total authenticity, they get a bunch of nods, and things just keep going the way they've been going. Benioff at Salesforce said basically the same thing. These are, put simply, people who have such low legibility on the mechanism of how their business makes money that they believe they understand how it can be replaced; and they're surrounded by men who nod and say "oh yes mark, yes of course we'll stop hiring engineers" then somehow conveniently that message never makes it to HR because those yes-men who surround him are the real people who run the business.
AI cannot replace people; AI augments people. If you say you've stopped hiring thanks to AI, what you're really saying is that your growth has stalled. The AI might grant your existing workforce an N% boon to productivity, but that's a one-time boon barring any major model breakthroughs (don't count on it). If you want to unlock more growth, you'll need to hire more people, but what you're stating is that you don't think more growth is in the cards for your business.
That's what these leaders are saying, at the end of the day; and its a reflection of the macroeconomic climate, not of the impacts of AI. These are dead businesses. They'll lumber along for decades, but their growth is gone.
[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/klarna-stopped-hiring-ago-rep...