General Motors Lays Off Hundreds of IT Workers to Hire AI Experts

The automaker is undergoing a deliberate skills swap, clearing out workers whose expertise no longer fits and making room for those with AI-focused backgrounds.

General Motors has laid off more than 10% of its IT department, or about 600 salaried employees, in a bid to future-proof its technology division. The layoffs are part of a broader effort to transform the company's IT organization and prepare it for the future. In an emailed statement, GM confirmed the layoffs and framed them as a means to better position the company for the future, without providing specifics.

What Skills is GM Looking For?

GM is still hiring people for roles in its IT department, but for different skills. The most sought-after capabilities are AI-native development, data engineering, and analytics, cloud-based engineering, and agent and model development, prompt engineering, and new AI workflows. In practical terms, GM is looking for people who know how to build with AI from the ground up — designing the systems, training the models, and engineering the pipelines — not just use AI as a productivity tool.

A Sign of Enterprise AI Adoption

For the industry, GM's restructuring is a signal of what enterprise AI adoption actually looks like in practice. It's not just about adding AI tools on top of existing teams, but deliberately rebuilding the workforce from the ground up. The specific capabilities GM is hiring for — agent development, model engineering, AI-native workflows — point directly at where large-enterprise demand is heading.

A Changing Software Workforce

GM has laid off white-collar employees in several departments over the past 18 months, as it focuses its resources on high-priority initiatives, including AI. In August 2024, for example, the company cut about 1,000 software workers. The software workforce has undergone significant change since Sterling Anderson, co-founder of the autonomous trucking startup Aurora and a veteran of the autonomous vehicle industry, was hired in May 2025 as chief product officer.

AI-Focused Hires

GM has since moved to fill the gap with new AI-focused hires. It hired Behrad Toghi, who previously worked at Apple, in October as AI lead. The company also brought on Rashed Haq as its vice president of autonomous vehicles. Haq spent five years at Cruise, the self-driving vehicle company acquired and later shuttered by GM, as its head of AI and robotics.

A Signal of What's to Come

For the industry, GM's restructuring is a signal of what enterprise AI adoption actually looks like in practice. It's not just about adding AI tools on top of existing teams, but deliberately rebuilding the workforce from the ground up. The specific capabilities GM is hiring for — agent development, model engineering, AI-native workflows — point directly at where large-enterprise demand is heading.