Morrisons AI push helps deliver £940m savings

Morrisons has discovered the true magic of AI: it makes £940m of 'savings' appear, provided you're willing to overlook the small matter of head office staff being shown the door. Rami Baitiéh, the supermarket boss, triumphantly announced the figure — a sum that presumably includes the payroll costs of all those redundant Bradford colleagues. It's the same trick the Oracle crew pulled: fire humans, call it efficiency, and count the wages you no longer pay as pure profit.

Of course, the official line will be about 'transformation' and 'data-driven decision making' — as if the checkout staff who've already been replaced by self-service tills weren't clue enough. The message is clear: your job is just a cost line, and AI is the sharpest pair of scissors finance has ever wielded. Expect other grocers to follow suit; after all, why compete on quality when you can compete on who can fire the most people the fastest?

Baitiéh didn't specify how many roles were axed, only that the cuts were at the 'head office' — the convenient euphemism for 'the bit of the business where people are expensive and their salaries show up on spreadsheets.' One wonders if the AI that found these savings also recommended a nice severance package. Probably not — that would eat into next quarter's savings target.