AT&T, which already shed more than half of its workforce over the past decade, says it’s going to continue laying off staff as it gears up for the AI era. The telecommunications giant is also doing away with its old-school landline service and using artificial intelligence to automate some internal processes. All this downsizing is resulting in tangible benefits, including a considerable decrease in electricity usage, AT&T chief technology officer Jeremy Legg tells WIRED.
“We’re not going to have the same headcount in five years as we do today,” Legg says, adding that comparing its staffing levels to that of peers plays a role in its decisionmaking. According to public financial disclosures, AT&T generated less revenue per employee last year than its competitors Verizon and T-Mobile, both of which have let go of workers in recent months.
If AT&T continues cutting jobs at the same pace as last year, when it shed 8,000 people, its workforce could approach 85,000 employees by 2030. A person familiar with the matter, who was not authorized to speak publicly, described that number as the company’s target. AT&T called the figure inaccurate. In the first half of 2026, the telecom giant cut some 2,100 jobs.
By the end of the decade, AT&T wants to be seen as a “dramatically different” company with a “fantastic” fiber internet service and “kickass wireless network,” AT&T CEO John Stankey said at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference in San Francisco earlier this month.
AT&T’s transition provides a window into how legacy companies are trying to rebuild their operations as artificial intelligence tools become increasingly capable. AT&T has been around for 150 years, and it still plays a major role in the global economy. Legg says it handles about 15 percent of the world’s internet traffic, and the company employed nearly 131,000 people as of June. The question is whether it can drive innovation while also shedding costs and trying to keep up with the likes of Elon Musk.
Some of AT&T’s decades-old systems still run on paper records and require workers to do things manually, such as when a customer wants to disconnect their phone service. Some of that work is now being automated.
The telecom giant is using AI systems for customer service, to help identify locations for new cell phone towers, and to find maintenance issues on existing ones. A generative AI system AT&T calls GeoModeler adjusts network settings on the fly during rare events like extreme weather. And like many companies, AT&T is using AI to generate software code and help manage service issues.
Starting next year, AT&T will replace physical hardware at thousands of central hubs with cloud software from Israeli startup DriveNets, in which AT&T is an investor. The change will allow technicians to make adjustments remotely, such as when a customer requests faster internet. As more tasks are automated, a number of middle management and junior developer roles are expected to disappear.
Jobs in the US telecommunications industry have been declining for 25 years, according to government data, but the potential for AI to accelerate the trend and boost profits has captivated investors.
At the same time, AT&T is decommissioning the energy-intensive copper wire network that has long powered its landline telephone and DSL internet networks. Dropping these services generally requires approval from state and federal regulators, since rural areas may not have access to alternatives, and the company’s plans have been met by local protests in some communities. But by the end of this year, AT&T expects it will no longer have to offer copper in more than 85 percent of its existing footprint.