Tech company Vendasta cuts 20 jobs in Saskatoon and 50 worldwide as it switches over to AI

Saskatchewan technology company Vendasta has laid off 20 employees in the province, and approximately 50 worldwide. That’s out of about 650 employees total.

The company — which sells business efficiency technology and employed about 650 people before the cuts — said the decision was made as the software industry pivots to artificial intelligence.

Vendasta now boasts an “AI workforce” that can work 24/7 without a paycheque, covering customer service operations and content creation.

The company’s CEO, Brendan King, said the switch to AI, which resulted in the layoffs, is about keeping up with the changing times.

“Some of the jobs that we were doing in the past was building websites, you know, writing social content, making posts for [our clients], driving traffic to their website. And that has changed dramatically,” King said.

“In order for us to be able to provide that service at a quality scale, we also have to use AI.”

WATCH | Saskatoon company laying off staff as it moves toward AI:

Saskatoon company laying off staff as it moves toward AI

March 6|

Duration 3:02

Statistics Canada estimates about 60 per cent of Canadians are working in jobs highly exposed to the threat of AI. We’re already seeing those stats become a reality in Saskatchewan. A Saskatoon-based company is laying off its staff because it’s moving towards AI automation.

Changing the business model and laying off employees is hard for everyone, “But it’s just part of what you have to do to build a strong company,” he said.

Aaron Genest, a manager at Siemens Digital Industries in Saskatoon, said workforce disruptions have always come with changing technological advances.

“If you’re dealing with a highly technical company, regardless of its size, it’s facing the disruptions that AI, just like any other technology, are providing very rapidly compared to the rest of the market,” Genest said.

He pointed to administrative assistants, receptionists and typists as examples of positions that have become obsolete in many business models.

“Every office had a typist for pretty much every white collar worker, or at least a collection of typists. Those typing pools went away when we adopted computers and expected people to do their own typing because word processing made us more effective. The skill of typing accurately wasn’t valued as much,” Genest said.

Many of those typists moved into other areas of administrative work, Genest said.

“We’re asking people to do more complex jobs that involve more cognitive effort. However, some people got left behind as they didn’t develop those skills,” he said.

“Those companies hire people who have a new set of skills that partially overlap. So the thinner that overlap area is, the more likely it is that the old employee is going to lose their job. And so that’s one fundamental way in which labour disruption happens.”

Genest said this is exactly what companies adding AI tools to their business models are dealing with right now.

King said Vendasta is “investing heavily in programs” to retrain people so they can embrace AI.

While the Saskatoon-based company is hiring in other areas, none of the 20 laid off employees have been shifted into other positions in the company or trained to manage the AI tools now being used, King said.

“Not to put it back on people, but we need people to actually embrace AI and want to do that. And sometimes, you know, that might not be for some people, and that’s OK too.”

Genest said as with any technology, the sooner companies and employees can understand how to use AI to their advantage, as well as its limitations, the more resilient they will be in the software industry.

Genest said AI will enable companies to do more for their business and their clients.

He said Siemens Digital Industries is always doing this.

“All that they’re aiming to do is to be able to do more every day with the technology.”