“It’s impressive and really very violent,” a trade unionist told RTL. The international group Onclusive, specializing in media monitoring and the design of press reviews, announced that it would be shedding more than 200 employees in a few months. These will be replaced by artificial intelligence. This is the first social plan of such magnitude for reasons linked to the development of AI.
Of the 383 employees of the company based in Courbevoie (Hauts-de-Seine), 217 will lose their jobs between January and June 2024, management announced. It’s a “human catastrophe in the making,” deplores a company union to Libération. “People have been there for twenty years, they are very specialized professions,” adds a union delegate at the RTL microphone.
Onclusive employees are specialized in writing press reviews. Their clients are several CAC 40 companies, but also French ministries and public services. Until last February, they also provided content to the European Commission.
The group’s management justifies its decision by the need for the company to reinvent itself in the face of the artificial intelligence revolution.
In a study published in March 2023, analysts at Goldman Sachs predicted that generative AI could eliminate or downsize about 300 million jobs.
