Teresa Lim has one of the most recognisable voices in Australia. For 23 years, she has been the voice behind radio and television advertisements, selling listeners on everything from baby formula to Test cricket. But despite her extensive portfolio, she’s become increasingly worried that she is going to be replaced by AI.
It’s a well-grounded fear. AI has been blamed for more than 1,000 job cuts in Australia in the past few months. Tech company Atlassian on Thursday announced they would shed 500 jobs in Australia as part of a global round of 1,600 redundancies, and experts warn there could be more to come as companies seek to use technological advancements to cut costs.
In Lim’s case, companies who have previously hired her for voiceover work could now use an AI-generated dupe, made from just a 15-second clip of her speech.
“It is terrifying not just for voice actors, but for the general Australian public, because currently we have no legislation in place that makes that illegal,” she says.
In a letter to staff, Atlassian CEO, Mike Cannon-Brookes, says his company’s approach was not “AI replaces people”.
He added: “but it would be disingenuous to pretend AI doesn’t change the mix of skills we need or the number of roles required in certain areas.”
Two weeks earlier, Block, the owner of Afterpay, cut 4,000 workers worldwide – including a reported 700 Australians – while local software company Wisetech let 2,000 employees go.
Some analysts say AI is an excuse given by businesses to justify redundancies, but growing numbers of workers are becoming anxious about their job security.
WiseTech, Block and Atlassian cut jobs in their foundational software product teams, and are using AI to make their remaining workers more efficient.
WiseTech’s chief executive, Zubin Appoo, made the connection explicit, saying: “the era of manually writing code as a core act of engineering is over”.
Retrenched employees at Block, owned by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, questioned whether AI could effectively replace their work and noted growing investor pressure on the company. Block had been accused of over-hiring and its share price had dropped 35% since October.
WiseTech’s share price halved over the past six months and its employee numbers doubled after an acquisition. Both suffered from market fears that AI could make their software obsolete, and experienced a rebound after announcing the job cuts: Block is up 20% and Wisetech 11%.
Atlassian’s share price, which had halved in just two months, is closed even lower on Friday.
Telstra also axed 200 jobs in its AI joint venture with Accenture. The CEO, Vicky Brady, said no roles had “directly been taken” by AI, but the technology was adding to overall efficiency.
Work revolution or AI-washing?
Neal Woolrich, a human resources adviser at analyst firm Gartner, says he is sceptical of claims all of these job cuts are due to AI.
“I think there’s a…
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