Atlassian tells Australia's Senate AI inquiry 'we do not believe that AI replaces jobs' after cutting staff to fund AI

Atlassian told an Australian parliamentary inquiry on 22 October 2026 that AI does not replace jobs, months after it cut about a tenth of its staff, including some 500 in Australia, to pay for its AI push. Questioned at the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence, Atlassian's head of regulatory affairs and responsible AI, Anna Jaffe, said the March layoffs "were taken specifically to self-fund our investment in AI and in enterprise sales", adding: "We do not believe that AI replaces jobs." Tasmanian Labor senator Josh Dolega called that "part of the con that I'm seeing, where workers are bearing the unfair burden of artificial intelligence in workplaces", and told her the people who lost their jobs "would probably disagree". At the same hearing, ACTU secretary Melissa Donnelly said "working people have had strikingly little say in how AI is transforming our working lives", and that NAB management "refused to confirm with the union if the cuts were associated with AI" when it announced its latest job cuts. Atlassian's position is the one this tracker records: the company funded AI with the savings but has never said AI is doing the work of the people it let go.