Verizon is setting a dangerous example for T-Mobile and AT&T, and they’re sure to follow

According to a new report received by us, Verizon’s recent layoffs of 13,000 employees wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. The company had been preparing for it in the worst way possible: making its employees train their AI replacements before being let go.

Verizon’s new CEO — Dan Schulman — apparently wants to shake things up, and the first step was laying off over a dozen thousand employees. And the example that Verizon is setting for T-Mobile and AT&T is scary, for both consumers and representatives alike.

No more human element

To cut costs, Verizon allegedly wants to transition over to AI-powered customer support in many more areas. The company allegedly made its employees train AI models to take their jobs. This means that customers will be forced to interact with AI customer service, which will possibly lead to an overall worse experience.

That’s not even mentioning the thousands of employees who have lost their jobs. Verizon, in its quest for turning things around, is headed into a fully digital future. And that is terrifying, because it means that the job market is about to see a lot more desperate people.

T-Mobile is doing the same

Though news of mass layoffs hasn’t come out of T-Mobile just yet, I think that it’s only a matter of time. A short while back, multiple T-Mobile employees contacted us and claimed that the T-Life app was designed to replace them.

T-Mobile apparently has a plan to shift everything to the app by 2027. 100 percent adoption across all operations, no questions asked. Once that happens, the company will be free to start making its career opportunities a lot less lucrative, hoping that it’s employees will start looking elsewhere.

If that doesn’t drive them away, there’s nothing stopping the un-carrier from simply laying them all off, like Verizon. These are all serious allegations made against T-Mobile by its employees, many of them, and I fear that they’re going to turn out to be completely true.

You don’t get a choice

Customers and employees alike are at the mercy of these radical changes, and Verizon just opened Pandora’s box. Now that one company has laid the groundwork, T-Mobile and AT&T can follow in its footsteps without attracting as much negative attention.

I fear that both of them are going to lay off thousands in the near future, and make their own moves to digitize their operations. T-Mobile has the T-Life app, Verizon has its AI customer service, and we would be foolish to not expect something similar from AT&T soon.

But is this the right call?

There’s just one problem with Verizon’s approach: most customers don’t want this. The employees are obviously not fond of this new tactic, but even the average customer likes to only deal with a human customer support agent.