There is undeniable tension between employees who fear AI will take their jobs and CEOs who are wildly optimistic that AI will change their businesses for good. As executives name AI as one of many reasons for mass layoffs , Costco’s CEO Ron Vachris views AI as a supplement to human value. Two weeks ago, Vachris spoke at the Economic Club of Chicago about how AI is—and isn’t—changing Costco’s workforce of 341,000. Costco has used AI in many parts of the business, and has seen an increase in sales in some of its departments, like in the pharmacy sector. “AI has been extremely good for our company in an assistive nature,” Vachris said. “What we found is, it has worked very well, complementing our employees and the systems that we put in place in the pharmacy, in our gas stations, and in the accounting department that we have. And also in some of our IT. It was writing some code.” In Vachris’s eyes, the tech serves to empower Costco employees rather than replace them.…