A fresh wave of corporate AI cheerleading at Electronic Arts has not landed well with everyone inside the walls. Management pushed a wide-ranging campaign for staff to adopt generative AI tools, and some employees pushed back by mocking the mandate in internal Slack channels while worrying that the push could be used to justify headcount cuts.
Roughly 15,000 people work for EA, and the drive includes mandatory AI training, an internal chatbot called ReefGPT, and encouragement to automate tasks. The reaction, at least in some corners, has been blunt and sarcastic. Employees posted parodies and jokes in Slack about the program, and some say the timing of the push felt suspicious, coming after rounds of layoffs earlier this year.
One former senior QA employee at Respawn described a situation in which an AI was able to handle a core part of their job, collecting and summarizing tester feedback, and that person was later laid off in April. That account is part of a broader article on the topic; readers can find the reporting at Business Insider. The claim underscores why some workers view the new AI push with skepticism rather than relief.
This is not just a single tool rollout. The company is promoting AI across groups and encouraging employees to use it for day-to-day tasks. For staff who watched projects or roles shrink during earlier staffing changes, the message that AI should be used everywhere landed like a reminder that automation can change what employers expect from a job.
EA’s leadership has framed AI as a productivity and innovation play, but for many employees, the conversation is about job security and transparency. Internal mockery in Slack is one sign of frustration; another is the fear that AI adoption will be held up as justification for future cuts. That worry is especially sharp among those who have already seen parts of their teams trimmed.
For readers tracking the broader tech trend, this episode echoes similar tension at other large companies that have pushed AI adoption while also trimming workforces. If you want background on desktop AI rollouts and new tools, our earlier look at ChatGPT Atlas may be helpful for context: OpenAI launches ChatGPT Atlas browser.
EA has not published an internal public-facing timeline tying AI adoption to staffing decisions. The debate inside the company looks to be, at heart, about how management communicates change and whether new tools help employees or replace them. Thoughts or experiences to share? Leave a comment below and follow us on X, Bluesky, and YouTube.
