Cisco and Ford expand AI use, reshaping thousands of jobs

Cisco announced that by the end of July it will equip roughly 90,000 employees with personal AI assistants. The system is designed to handle routine tasks, answer queries and automatically route requests to the most suitable AI model, balancing speed and computational cost. Cisco says the technology is built on an internally developed AI stack and was unveiled in the same quarter the company cut about 4,000 jobs.

Ford revealed that its earlier strategy of replacing hundreds of engineers with AI-driven quality‑inspection tools proved ineffective. The automaker has brought many of those engineers back, acknowledging that AI lacks the intuition and experience needed to spot subtle defects. The rehired specialists are now mentoring newer staff and supervising the AI systems to improve overall product quality.