ATT Doing More AI and Less with Employees

According to reporting from WIRED, AT&T is aggressively shrinking its workforce and phasing out legacy infrastructure in favor of automation and AI-driven operations. As the telecom titan transitions away from power-hungry copper landlines—slashing its electricity consumption by over 13% since 2020 and sitting on so much scrap copper CEO John Stankey joked they are practically the "fifth-largest copper mine in the U.S."—it is automating everything from customer service and software coding to physical network adjustments via cloud routing and internal tools like GeoModeler. While executives project headcount will continue to drop over the next five years to boost lagging revenue-per-employee metrics against rivals like Verizon and T-Mobile, the company is pivoting remaining resources toward fiber, wireless networks, and a smaller, higher-tier roster of workers hired specifically to govern AI agents, oversee automated systems, and service critical fiber infrastructure.