GM Lays Off 600 IT Workers, Hires AI-Focused Engineers for Agent and Model Development

General Motors laid off about 600 IT workers (~10% of its department) this month as part of a deliberate skills swap. The company confirmed the move to TechCrunch, framing it as preparing for the future. A source familiar with the layoffs said GM is still hiring for IT roles, but with a different skillset: AI-native development, data engineering, cloud-based engineering, agent and model development, prompt engineering, and new AI workflows.

This follows a broader trend at GM: in August 2024, it cut ~1,000 software workers, and since then has hired an AI lead (Behrad Toghi, ex-Apple) and a VP of autonomous vehicles (Rashed Haq, ex-Cruise). The restructuring is driven by CPO Sterling Anderson, co-founder of Aurora, who has been consolidating GM's tech divisions since May 2025.

Key capabilities GM is hiring for:

• Agent development (designing AI agents)
• Model engineering (training and fine-tuning models)
• Data engineering and analytics
• Cloud-based engineering
• Prompt engineering and AI workflow design

GM wants people who can build AI systems from the ground up — not just use AI as a productivity tool. This includes designing pipelines, training models, and engineering agent-based systems.

The shift signals how large enterprises are approaching AI adoption: not layering tools on existing teams, but rebuilding the workforce to focus on AI-native roles.