IBM has not disclosed when the HR reductions occurred, but the action is part of an increasing trend toward automating mundane HR tasks to free up resources for growth and innovation roles.

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna has mentioned that the automation of human resources (HR) employees using artificial intelligence (AI) tools hasn't resulted in a net reduction in jobs, but rather it has helped the company hire more people in higher-revenue, strategic areas like programming and sales.

Discussing with The Wall Street Journal, Krishna explained IBM's leveraging AI and automation inside the company in order to reshuffle certain corporate functions starting from HR. Using AI-enabled robots able to interpret data, make researches, and build simple communications, the company had a smaller reliance on typical HR staff laying off about several hundred. However, efficiencies and cost cuts created were sooner turned to help IBM hire additional skillsets needed by IBM as IBM looked for how it needed to grow, invest in growth drivers, or even develop business internally.

Although we've done a tremendous amount of work within IBM on how to take advantage of AI and automation on some enterprise workflows, our overall employment has actually increased," Krishna said. "Because what it does is it allows you to invest more in other places.

Those fields are software engineering, sales and marketing "critical thinking" jobs that need human interaction, creativity, and decision-making, Krishna said. These are areas, he went on, that need individuals "to do things that face up or against other humans, rather than doing plain rote process work.

This movement reflects a paradigmatic shift in how HR work functions are perceived and organized at multinational corporations. HR is no longer just to remain an administrative hub but also act as more strategic enabler of business goals while using technology alongside prioritizing the human focus like talent management, workforce planning, and employee experience.

IBM is not saying exactly how the HR job cuts occurred over what time period, but the transformation speaks to a larger trend: organizations are leveraging automation to simplify operational tasks within HR, while redeploying resources into functions with a direct impact on innovation and growth.

The company's internal AI agents now manage a spectrum of HR-related tasks from screening resumes and sending follow-up communications to analyzing workforce data. This, Krishna says, has liberated the company to adopt a more agile and responsive hiring strategy, especially for technical and customer-facing positions.

The consequences of IBM's model spread wider than its own employees. For the HR profession as a whole, the transition marks a new era in which automation is not only a threat, but a driver for change. Day-to-day HR activities like payroll, compliance reporting and performance monitoring are being increasingly automated, enabling HR professionals to concentrate on strategic activities like talent engagement, leadership development and organizational culture.

But such transitions are not risk-free. With companies relying more and more on AI and automation, there are concerns about the ethics of displacement, transparency in AI decision-making, and reskilling HR professionals for a more strategic function. IBM's strategy seems to bet on the possibility that automation will decrease headcount in certain support positions but create openings elsewhere—if done carefully.

It isn't the first time Krishna has discussed how AI can lower cost of operations but also create new avenues for growth. In earlier this year comments, he expressed that as AI becomes cheaper by the day, its adoption is going to "explode," fuelling demand across industries for the technology. "We will discover that the adoption will explode because costs will fall," he stated to Bloomberg Television in February.

Even with these internal accomplishments, Krishna is prudent when it comes to outside pressures, like trade policy. Referring to the effect of the tariffs initiated by former President Donald Trump, Krishna stated the influence on IBM thus far has been minimal since the majority of its high-end machines, such as mainframes and quantum computers, are locally assembled. Nevertheless, he cautioned that if tariffs cause lower discretionary spend, especially in the consulting area, IBM may have to make more difficult choices.

"If the effect is somewhere in the 3 to 4%, then actually you can grit and struggle through it," Krishna stated. "If the effect is going to be a 10% one, then that involves much harder-headed management decisions."

Krishna's remarks are part of broader discussions surrounding how AI will transform workforces around the world. His view that automation of HR can be a catalyst, not a hindrance provides an interesting case study for organisations that are considering similar changes. As more companies bring AI into their talent operations, the IBM experience may be both a guidebook and cautionary tale: automate thoughtfully, reinvest effectively, and keep people at the center of workforce transformation.