The world’s largest health and beauty retailer says AI will make shopping ‘more human, not less’

The CEO of the world’s largest health and beauty retailer is pushing back against using AI to shrink headcount, arguing that the technology should be used to upgrade human work instead of replacing it.

“Is it really that, with AI, we’re going to cut out 30% of our workforce? Or… are we going to increase the quality of our people’s intelligence?” Malina Ngai, Group CEO of AS Watson, said at the Fortune Leaders Forum on Sept.

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Companies, particularly in the tech sector, have laid off tens of thousands of employees this year as they pivot towards AI.

Oracle , for example, cut 21,000 jobs , or roughly 13% of its workforce, over the past year.

Instead, Ngai—who previously led AS Watson’s digital transformation and expansion of its online commerce offerings—argued the retailer is pushing a “human-AI partnership” strategy.

“You should bring the AI assistant with you to work.

It helps you to think faster and smarter,” she said.

Since the strategy launched last October, employee engagement scores have “jumped up a lot,” she said, as staff spend more time in face-to-face interactions rather than facing a screen.

The company pairs that with a “customer love score” which Ngai said keeps rising as store staff are freed to serve customers.

“This is not the usual way that people would measure AI,” she acknowledged.

Ngai argued AI is an opportunity to change how retail itself works.

“It’s the first time we are able to look into how we reinvent the model so that we don’t just focus on processes,” she said.

“Going forward, I think retail is going to become more human, not less.” Her thoughts are echoed by others in the retail sector: In May, Costco CEO Ron Vachris insisted that AI was “ elevating ” workers.