The Layoffs Didn’t Start with AI.

-- AI has become the scapegoat for recent layoffs, but the real problem runs deeper. It starts when success breeds comfort, and purpose slowly fades into a slogan. While signals of change appears quietly as slowed systems and quiet misalignments, they're often overlooked. Further, companies don’t fall because of 'sudden disruption', but because they stop noticing. The ones that survive are those that stay awake to the shifts already underway.

Two headlines shook the corporate world.
Intel. TCS.
Tens of thousands of people and their families are affected, including engineers, designers, mid-level managers, and team leads.
Some were already updating their résumés. Others never saw it coming.

We talk about layoffs like they’re numbers. But they’re not.
They’re people.
And whether you're one of those who got the email, or you’re a leader who had to make the decision… this is hard.

Maybe the most noteworthy part is realising that AI didn’t fire people. We did.

Not out of cruelty. Not even out of incompetence.
But we didn’t notice the shift until it was too late.

Change doesn’t knock. It gathers force silently. 
At Stratacom, we work with organisations navigating change every day. 
And we’ve learned something uncomfortable: change doesn’t announce itself in a crisis. It begins with success.

It begins when things are going well.
When earnings look stable.
When teams are delivering.
When the purpose statement sounds noble, but nobody really checks if it’s alive inside the system.

That’s when misalignment grows quietly.
That’s when bureaucracy grows and Innovation stalls.
That’s when the guardrails come down.
That’s when the cracks emerge beneath the surface.

And then the tide shifts.

Suddenly, you’re not adapting fast enough.
Your middle management is bloated.
Your teams are working, but not evolving.
And the market moves.

That’s when change hits like a tsunami.
And by then, it’s not a question of if you’ll change.
It’s how much you’ll lose in the process.

We don’t say this to judge. We say this because we’ve seen it coming.

Intel didn’t get here overnight.
Neither did TCS.

We’ve studied their paths not with criticism, but with curiosity. Intel once faced similar upheaval in the 90s. Their former CEO, Andy Grove, even wrote about it in Only the Paranoid Survive. He spoke of “strategic inflexion points”,  moments when the fundamentals shift, and the rules change.

The irony is that wisdom came from Intel itself.
But this time, the signals were missed.
Or perhaps they were noticed, but rationalised away.

And TCS? A company that built India’s digital backbone, its purpose once tied to building lives, not just systems. Today, it's under pressure. And when pressure rises, purpose becomes the first thing to erode.

Could this have been different?

Yes.

Because purpose isn’t just about sounding good on stage, it’s about helping you pivot before you’re forced to.

Had Intel framed its purpose not around “building chips,” but around “enabling intelligence everywhere,”  its investments, talent strategy, and structural evolution may have taken a different path.

Had TCS seen its real value not as “headcount at scale,” but “human capability in motion,” it might have moved toward augmented consulting long before automation threatened bench roles.

This isn’t revisionist thinking. It’s a reminder that purpose, when operationalised, becomes your early warning system.

It tells you when culture is drifting, when systems are slowing down.
When you’re optimising the past instead of creating the future.

So what do we do now?

We stop blaming AI.
We stop pointing fingers.
We start listening.

To the ground beneath our feet.
To the people in our systems.
To the purpose we claimed to serve, but perhaps it was left unattended.

Because change isn’t the enemy.
Change is the truth knocking on the door.

And here’s the good news:
Companies like Intel will bounce back. They’ve done it before.
Because once awareness returns, so does direction.

The real danger isn’t disruption.
It’s denial.

What should you be looking for in your own organisation?
 

• Do your teams still know why they do what they do, or are they just doing what they are asked to?
   
• Are your mid-level leaders empowered to challenge direction or just execute orders?
   
• Is your purpose still operational or just decorative on the website?
   
• Are you optimising a system that has already outlived the market?
   

We read these headlines differently.

Not as distant events.
But as warnings.
As invitations.

To pause.
To reflect.

To ask: Are we still aligned with the change that’s already happening?

You don’t need to be afraid of change.
You just need to stop being surprised by it.

Because the companies that survive aren’t the biggest.
They’re the ones that stay awake.