AI isn’t replacing people, but is changing who we hire

Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su said Tuesday that artificial intelligence has not slowed the pace of hiring at her company, but the candidates who have truly embraced the technology have become a priority.

“I would say that we’re actually not hiring fewer people,” Su told CNBC’s Jon Fortt on Tuesday from the CES conference in Las Vegas. “Frankly, we’re growing very significantly as a company, so we actually are hiring lots of people, but we’re hiring different people. We’re hiring people who are AI forward.”

AMD develops the graphics processing unit (GPU) chips that train models and run large AI workloads, placing the company firmly at the center of the AI boom. It competes directly Nvidia, which dominates the AI chip environment with more than 90% of the market share, according to some estimates.

After AI exploded into the mainstream following the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot roughly three years ago, the technology’s rapid rise has prompted concerns about job security and the future of the labor market.

AMD is incorporating AI into how the company builds, designs, manufactures and tests chips, and Su said the candidates who “truly embrace” it are the ones getting hired.

Su’s comments come a day after Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari said AI is causing big companies to slow hiring. He said he expects to see continued low hiring and low firing in the labor market.

As of December 2024, AMD had roughly 28,000 employees worldwide, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

“I would say that AI is augmenting our capabilities,” Su said. “It’s not replacing people, it’s actually just augmenting our productivity in terms of the number of products we can bring up at any given time.”

WATCH: Watch CNBC’s full interview with AMD CEO Lisa Su