If reductions continued at last year’s pace, AT&T’s workforce could fall to about 85,000 employees by 2030. A person familiar with the company described that figure as an internal target, although AT&T disputed it as inaccurate.
The cuts continue a much longer contraction. AT&T has eliminated more than half of its workforce over the past decade, while employment across the U.S. telecommunications sector has been declining for 25 years. Legg said the company also compares its staffing efficiency with Verizon and T-Mobile, which generated more revenue per employee than AT&T last year.
AI is becoming one of the tools behind the latest round of operational changes. AT&T is applying the technology to customer service, software development, service-ticket management, cell-tower planning, and network maintenance. Its generative AI system, GeoModeler, can also change network settings during unusual conditions such as extreme weather.
Some of AT&T’s older processes still depend on paper records and manual steps. Tasks such as disconnecting phone service are among the areas now being automated.
The company expects those changes to alter which jobs it needs. Middle-management positions and junior developer roles are among those expected to decline as more work is handled through automated systems. At the same time, AT&T says it will continue hiring employees who can build and govern AI agents, supervise automated workflows, and maintain its fiber network.
Another major change begins next year, when AT&T plans to replace physical equipment at thousands of central network hubs with cloud-based software from DriveNets, an Israeli startup in which AT&T has invested. The setup will allow technicians to perform more network changes remotely, including increasing a customer’s internet capacity without traveling to a hub.
AT&T is also moving away from the copper infrastructure that has supported its landline telephone and DSL businesses. The company expects that by the end of 2026 it will no longer be required to provide copper service across more than 85% of its existing footprint, although some retirements still depend on state and federal approval where alternative services are limited.
Chief financial officer Pascal Desroches said the shift allows AT&T “to retire underutilized infrastructure, and infrastructure that is absorbing a lot of power and personnel attention.”
The network overhaul is already reducing energy use. AT&T said total energy consumption declined 13.1% between 2020 and the end of 2025. Since 2024, moving away from copper has saved 660,000 megawatt-hours of electricity, an amount the company said could power roughly 65,000 homes. AT&T has not disclosed its current overall electricity consumption.
CEO John Stankey has described the goal as turning AT&T into a “dramatically different” company by the end of the decade, with the business centered more heavily on fiber internet and wireless service. At the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference in San Francisco earlier this month, he described the company’s desired future network as a “fantastic” fiber service paired with a “kickass wireless network.”
That transition is unfolding as AT&T and its largest rivals also consider how satellite connectivity fits into their networks. Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T are cooperating on satellite services and could work with multiple technology providers, potentially including SpaceX’s Starlink. Legg said he expects fiber to remain cheaper than satellite connectivity and argued that satellite service will not work in every location.
The internal restructuring extends beyond technology. AT&T returned most workers to a five-day office schedule as pandemic-era restrictions eased, a policy Legg said contributed to some natural attrition. He said the company believed its culture had been deteriorating and has invested in its offices in Dallas, Atlanta, and Seattle, including childcare programs and on-site mental health therapists.
Even as overall headcount declines, AT&T expects its workforce to evolve rather than simply disappear. The company still needs technicians for fiber infrastructure while adding roles around AI systems and automated operations.
The result is a company attempting to run more of its network through software while removing older equipment and reducing the amount of manual work required to keep the system operating. For AT&T, workforce reductions, AI adoption, cloud-based networking, and copper retirement are increasingly part of the same modernization effort.
This analysis is based on reporting from WIRED.
Image courtesy of AT&T/CNET.
This article was generated with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy and quality.
