🏢 WiseTech scrubbed the word "AI" from their 2,000-person layoff emails in China

https://preview.redd.it/4wnzlpfoym2h1.png?width=1900&format=png&auto=webp&s=87661609bb15bc2dd99b1603cf1239ec1014f760 So the CEO of this Aussie software company WiseTech, Zubin Appoo, sent out layoff emails this week and specifically hid the word "AI" from their Chinese employees. When they laid off people on the global teams, they straight up cited "AI transformation" as the main reason for the cuts. But the memo that went to the China office swapped that phrase for "global transformation" and totally scrubbed any mention of tech taking over jobs. For context, WiseTech announced back in February that they were going to let go of almost 30% of their 7,000 employees across 40 different countries, which is about 2,000 people. The company directly linked the move to automation at the time. Now staff are jumping on internal message boards and openly demanding answers from management about whether this deliberate text change is tied to a recent Chinese court precedent. Not too long ago, another tech company in China got slapped with a 53,000 AUD compensation payout to a fired worker who was replaced by AI. The whole communication strategy really highlights how global corporations are getting super careful about putting anything regarding artificial intelligence in official documents in the Chinese market. China's new legal approach is basically directly penalizing businesses that swap out human workers for algorithms and then use tech progress as the official excuse for the layoffs. Source:[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/22/wisetech-redundancies-australia-omits-ai-from-emails-to-chinese-employees](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/22/wisetech-redundancies-australia-omits-ai-from-emails-to-chinese-employees)