An insider at Verizon has revealed that prior to announcing its significant round of layoffs, the telecommunications giant initiated a mandatory internal program involving AI role-playing exercises with employees. This move has raised questions about the company’s approach to integrating AI technologies and its impact on staff.
Verizon's AI-Driven Transformation
Verizon's CEO, Dan Schulman, declared in late November 2025 that 13,000 of the company’s 100,000 employees would be laid off as part of a strategic shift aimed at reversing customer losses and evolving the company into a more AI-centric organization. Although Verizon initially denied that AI was the cause of these layoffs, an employee’s leaked email suggests otherwise.
Approximately six weeks before the layoffs were made public, Verizon reportedly launched a mandatory AI role-playing training for its workforce. However, the company has not clarified whether the data from these sessions was intended to train AI models.
The Purpose Behind the AI Training
While Verizon hasn’t explicitly confirmed that employee interactions were used to refine AI systems, the role-playing exercises could have been a method to enhance staff skills for customer retention — a key concern given recent churn. These AI-enhanced scenarios potentially offer more personalized training experiences than traditional methods.
Another plausible objective was evaluating employee performance through these programs to determine which roles to retain amidst restructuring. Alternatively, the program might have been designed to collect input for AI tools being developed to automate customer service tasks.
It’s worth noting that Verizon has been embracing AI since June 2025 to improve customer query handling, using tools like Mindtickle since August. However, the AI-focused training became mandatory and more intensive after Schulman assumed leadership, signaling a strategic pivot coinciding with his tenure.
Impact and Industry Context
Verizon’s layoffs are reportedly affecting day-to-day operations, although the company has simultaneously reopened some roles, possibly reflecting shifts in skill requirements or challenges with the AI transition. In a competitive landscape where T-Mobile recently overtook Verizon in subscriber base, and revenue growth from price hikes is limited, turning to AI as a cost-saving measure appears to be a calculated move.
Public Sentiment and Future Outlook
A recent poll shows that most customers (nearly 74%) prefer human representatives over chatbots, yet nearly a quarter would accept AI help if it proved more effective. This highlights the challenge Verizon faces in balancing automation with customer satisfaction.
Does Verizon Replace Jobs with AI?
The central question remains whether Verizon's use of AI training was a strategy to replace jobs with technology — and potentially use employees themselves to train models intended to supplant them. As Schulman steers the company toward increased efficiency, the integration of AI to handle tasks previously managed by humans is likely a key element of the transformation.
We have reached out to Verizon for comment and will update this article accordingly.
