In November 2025, IBM announced plans to cut thousands of roles during Q4, described as a 'low single-digit percentage' of its 270,000-person global workforce (potentially 2,700-8,100 jobs). Insiders reported the target headcount reduction was about 45% within IBM's US infrastructure group. This followed earlier rounds in 2024 affecting marketing, communications, and other departments. The company said US headcount would remain flat year-over-year.
Federal court ruled IBM broke ADEA by trying to shorten the deadline for suing over age discrimination. EEOC analysis showed 86% of workers considered for layoff were over 40. Over 20,000 workers age 40+ were discharged in what plaintiffs called 'standard operating procedure' for discrimination.
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In April 2025, IBM eliminated its DEI department and Diversity Council (established in the 1990s), stopped linking executive compensation to workforce diversity targets, and altered its supplier diversity program. The changes came after conservative activist Robby Starbuck contacted IBM in February and Heritage Foundation filed a shareholder proposal. CEO Arvind Krishna announced the changes via memo and video to employees.
By 2024, IBM had deployed its AskHR AI tool to automate HR functions, with reports suggesting about 200 HR workers were let go as the system scaled up. The AI tool can answer 94% of employee questions instantly, handling queries from vacation days to parental leave policies. This followed CEO Arvind Krishna's 2023 announcement about pausing hiring for back-office roles that could be automated.
IBM was among the first corporations to add sexual orientation to its non-discrimination policy in 1984, decades before most companies. In 1995, the company launched an LGBT Executive Task Force. By 1996-97, IBM extended health benefits to same-sex domestic partners across all 110,000 US employees, the largest US company to do so at the time. Gender identity was added to global policy in 2002. In 2020, IBM apologized for its 1968 firing of transgender computing pioneer Lynn Conway and awarded her a Lifetime Achievement Award. The company earned 15 consecutive perfect scores on the HRC Corporate Equality Index.
In December 2023, IBM and Meta co-founded the AI Alliance, an international community that grew from 50 founding members to over 100 organizations focused on open-source AI development, safety, and responsible innovation. The Alliance promotes open AI models, shared research, and collaborative governance frameworks as alternatives to closed proprietary AI systems.
In 2023, IBM achieved its target of reducing operational greenhouse gas emissions by 65% compared to 2010 baseline levels, reaching this milestone two years ahead of its original 2025 deadline. This was part of IBM's broader net-zero by 2030 strategy, demonstrating concrete progress on climate commitments rather than just setting targets.
In May 2023, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna stated the company would pause hiring for back-office functions, particularly HR, estimating that 30% of non-customer-facing roles (~7,800 jobs) could be replaced by AI and automation over five years. He cited an existing example: IBM had already reduced HR staff doing manual work from 700 to fewer than 50. Krishna later partially walked back the comments, saying IBM would not backfill roles lost through normal attrition rather than implementing a blanket freeze.
On February 16, 2021, IBM announced a commitment to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, prioritizing actual emissions reductions, energy efficiency, and clean energy use. IBM pledged to procure 75% of electricity from renewable sources by 2025 and 90% by 2030. In 2021, IBM received the inaugural Terra Carta Seal from the Prince of Wales for environmental sustainability commitment.
On June 8, 2020, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna sent a letter to Congress announcing IBM would no longer offer, develop, or research facial recognition technology. IBM called for national policies to address racial justice and police reform, becoming the first major tech company to exit the facial recognition market. Krishna stated IBM 'firmly opposes' use of facial recognition for mass surveillance and racial profiling.
In January 2019, IBM released the 'Diversity in Faces' dataset containing approximately 1 million images scraped from Flickr without the knowledge or consent of the photographers or their subjects. While intended to address racial bias in facial recognition by creating more diverse training data, the dataset was built without any notification to the people whose faces were included. NBC News revealed the lack of consent in March 2019.
From 2013-2025, IBM systematically discriminated against older workers through 'Resource Actions' layoffs that targeted employees over 40. ProPublica investigation (2018) revealed IBM ousted an estimated 20,000 U.S. workers ages 40+ over five years. EEOC determined in August 2020 that IBM engaged in systematic age discrimination with 'top-down messaging from IBM's highest ranks' directing managers to reduce headcount of older workers. EEOC found over 85% of those targeted for layoff were older workers. Court documents revealed 'dinobabies' emails from executives including CEO Ginny Rometty and SVP Diane Gherson discussing plans to make older employees 'extinct species' and citing older women as 'dated maternal workforce.' Multiple class-action lawsuits and settlements followed, with discrimination continuing through 2025 layoffs and return-to-office mandates used as 'soft layoffs.'
Since 2016, IBM has provided free public access to quantum computers via the cloud through IBM Quantum Experience, and developed Qiskit, an open-source Python framework for quantum computing that became the world's most widely used quantum software stack. IBM open-sourced Qiskit on GitHub, enabling researchers, students, and developers globally to experiment with quantum computing without financial barriers.