Gee says ‘companies are downsizing’ despite CEOs saying AI has little job impact
Feb 18, 2026, 1:55 PM
While a new survey by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that nearly 6,000 CEOs reported AI had little impact on employment and only a modest boost to productivity, KIRO host Gee Scott sees something different.
He believes AI is slowly eliminating the jobs where people coast.
“You know that person you go to work with, and you wonder what they do? Or maybe you’re one of the lucky ones, like, ‘I got it real easy. My job, I don’t have to do anything.’ You want to know what AI is doing? It’s taking all those jobs from people who are just sitting around, who you don’t quite know what they do. AI is cleaning those up,” Gee said on “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio.
KIRO host Ursula Reutin responded, “CEOs are saying that’s not what’s happening.”
“You mean the same CEO who makes 4,500 times the average employee?” Gee replied. “I’m just trying to tell you guys where we are headed.”
Gee then mentioned that he has a friend who uses a company car, and that his company told him half of the company cars would be going away in the next couple of months.
“Companies are downsizing. That’s just a fact,” he said. “Now, will AI just come out of here and just take all these jobs? Probably not.”
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A love-hate relationship with AI
Ursula said she has a love-hate relationship with AI, as it can help plan for the future or figure out which perfumes in her collection would make the best combinations, but she doesn’t like the idea that people are going to lose jobs because of it.
To which Gee responded, “I just don’t think people really care about people losing jobs.”
The survey found that firms predicted AI would boost productivity by around 1.4% and reduce employment by around 0.7% over the next three years. But employees saw it differently; they expected AI to create jobs, not eliminate them, and deliver smaller productivity gains.
Watch the full discussion in the video above.
Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.
