‘Can never say we’re done’: WiseTech signals more AI job losses are coming
WiseTech Global will cut more jobs as artificial intelligence takes over more of its work, chief executive Zubin Appoo has flagged, and he says the cuts will not stop when the current program ends.
“We can never say that we’re done,” Appoo told this masthead on Wednesday, hours after the embattled logistics software company posted an 11 per cent fall in annual profit and its shares dropped more than 7 per cent.
About 1200 of the 2000 roles announced in February have gone. Appoo said most of the rest would come from exiting large parts of the professional services arm of e2open, the US company WiseTech bought last year for $US3.2 billion, and shifting that work to partner firms.
Further reductions after that would be routine rather than another large program, he said, but the company would keep testing what AI could absorb.
The cuts have been hard on the workforce. Appoo said it was a difficult transformation but the right thing to do, and that WiseTech had given staff training and tools to use AI whether or not they kept their jobs.
WiseTech’s results showed net profit fell to $US178.7 million for the year to June 30. Revenue jumped 79 per cent to $US1.4 billion, almost all of it from e2open. Operating expenses rose 92 per cent.
The CargoWise platform, the engine of the business, grew 11 per cent. The company had guided to 14 to 21 per cent.
Appoo said nothing had gone wrong. He blamed refinements made after the ‘Value Packs’ pricing model went to 95 per cent of customers in December, a change that moved them off bespoke deals onto public pricing.
Josh Gilbert, lead analyst for the Asia-Pacific at eToro, said WiseTech was proving AI could take costs out of a business, but finding the next leg of growth was much harder.
“Zubin Appoo is running a leaner business, but rebuilding confidence and getting this business back to its best is a tough ask.”
The result landed a week after WiseTech disclosed that the competition watchdog had executed a search warrant as part of an investigation into alleged breaches of competition law.
Appoo said it was “very early days” and referred further questions to the ASX announcement.
5News aggregated this summary from the outlet’s public feed. The full article, with all the context, is on www.smh.com.au — the content belongs to Sydney Morning Herald - Technology.
