Background: WiseTech Global is the Aussie logistics software giant helping manage freight, customs and global supply chains. Over the past decade, it has made more than 55 acquisitions, bolting on new products and teams to expand its core platform.

What happened: Now, WiseTech has announced plans to cut around 2,000 jobs over the next 18 months, roughly 29% of its global workforce. Some teams, including product development and customer service, could see headcount slashed by up to 50%.The CEO was blunt: the era of manually writing code is over, describing the shift as a “deliberate AI transformation journey.

What else: The company is effectively betting that automation and AI can streamline its sprawling, acquisition-heavy structure. So despite a 36% fall in statutory profit, the share price jumped more than 11%, as investors backed the lower-cost, AI-driven reset.

What's the key learning

💡AI is no longer a side project or innovation lab experiment, it’s becoming a cost-cutting lever…. at scale. For years, companies promised productivity gains from AI with little tangible impact, but now we’re seeing what that really looks like, and it includes mass job cuts.

💡Just this week, Commonwealth Bank announced 300 job cuts alongside a $90 million push to build an “AI-ready” workforce.

💡Over the next two years, companies like WiseTech will show whether AI-driven savings translate into sustainable profit growth... or whether some white-collar roles prove harder to automate than expected.