In this lesson, you'll learn how to understand real English in the news step by step. Together, we'll read a news article that discusses how big tech is being disrupted by AI in a surprising way. As you read, you'll learn natural expressions and advanced grammatical structures. You'll also shadow my pronunciation so you pronounce your new vocabulary like a native. Welcome back to JForrest English. Of course, I'm Jennifer. Now let's get started. Our headline big tech promised AI would disrupt labor just not like this. So here of course big tech represents or is the short

form of the word technology and big tech the term represents the largest technology companies. So these people maybe you know some of them maybe you know all of them are the leaders or executives at big tech companies. So big tech the companies the leaders big tech promise AI would disrupt. So if you disrupt something such as oh that noise is disrupting me is causing a disturbance. It's causing a negative impact on and in this case the negative impact is on labor. Labor would disrupt labor. So labor represents the output of our work. Now it could be manual labor where you're

physically lifting something. But because we're talking about big tech, labor would be coders and developers and that style of labor as well. So the output of work just not like this. So this alludes to the fact there are disruptions caused by AI, but they're not what we expected. So this line adds a little bit of suspense. Don't worry about taking these notes. I summarize everything in a free lesson PDF. You can find the link in the description. Now, let's keep reading. Oracle. So, Oracle is a big tech company. Oracle is reportedly laying off thousands of employees. Okay,

here's what's important. This word reportedly. Do you know why this is important? Because they're not presenting it as fact. They're presenting it as rumor. We heard but we can't confirm because we are not employees of Oracle but we heard. So it may happen, it may not happen. Now thousands of employees, it could be 2,000. It could be 20,000. So this is a relatively vague number. You would have to be more specific, but it has to be more than 1,000. So thousands of. So notice the S is on here. Thousands of and then the S is also on employees. Now this

phrasal verb is very important. Lay off because if you are laid off. So the sentence structure I just used is to be laid off because you're receiving the action. I was laid off today. Oracle, the company I work for, Oracle laid me off. I was laid off by Oracle. Okay? So, if you're talking about the company doing it, you would use the active verb. If you're talking about the person receiving it, you would use the passive construction to be laid. Laid because that's the irregular form, laid off. Now, if you're laid off, it means you lost your job. you do not have a job,

but it's not because you were a bad employee or your work wasn't good. It's because the company no longer has a position for you. It could be because your project naturally ended or it bec could be because the company cannot afford to pay you. Let's read this again. Oracle is reportedly laying off thousands of employees, adding to an already long list of tech giants. So tech giants, these are large technology companies. You could replace this with already long list of big tech, what we used here, big tech, already long list of big tech, tech giants, cutting staff.

So here the phrasal or the verb cut means reduce. So if you cut staff it means you eliminate that staff. So because you eliminated it the overall staff is reduced. So reduce or eliminate cut staff tech giants cutting staff while spending hundreds of billions of dollars. Okay. So here we saw thousands of employees, billions of dollars, but it's not just two billion. Now this is more specific because it's hundreds of billions. So remember I said if you say thousands of employees, I don't know if it's 2,000 or 20,000 or 200,000, but if you say hundreds of billions, you already

know we're in 100 billion plus. So this is a lot more specific of the amount even though it is still vague. While spending hundreds of billions of dollars. Notice these of the prepositions and the plural here on AI data centers. Are you enjoying this lesson? If you are then I want to tell you about the finally fluent academy. This is my premium training program where we study native English speakers from TV, movies, YouTube, and the news so you can improve your listening skills of fast English, expand your vocabulary with natural expressions, and learn advanced grammar easily.

Plus, you'll have me as your personal coach. You can look in the description for the link to learn more or you can go to my website and click on finally fluent academy. Now let's continue with our lesson. Microsoft. So Microsoft is another example of a tech giant or a big tech company. Microsoft laid off 15,000 people. What did you notice about how I said this? Laid off 15,000 people. There's no s on thousand. Okay? Because there's a specific number here. Now, in this case,

hundreds of billions of dollars, there's no specific number in front of it. And because of that, you add the s. But if I did add a number and I said $200 billion dollar with a number, the s the plural is only on the unit. In this case, the unit is dollars. In this case, the unit is people. There's no s because people is the irregular plural of person. So, it's not that there is an s, it's that it's the plural form, which 90% of the time means there's an s. But there are some irregular plural forms like people. Now, remember this is our phrasal verb to lay off,

but this is the past simple. Microsoft laid off. So, Microsoft is doing the action. So, this is the active form. Microsoft laid off 15,000 people last year and Amazon, another tech giant. Amazon axed 16,000. So, same thing, no s jobs in January. So, remember this is the unit which takes the plural and this is a regular noun. So, we have s as the plural form. Now, here you're probably wondering about this. So, an axe is a tool that you use to chop wood or to chop down a tree, for example.

Ax. Axe. So, we have that s sound. Axe. And then this is pronounced as a t. axed. It's not the most commonly used as a verb, but in this context, it means eliminated. So, it would be the same thing as cut. Now, if you cut a piece of paper compared to if you take an axe and you axe a piece of paper, axe sounds more severe. So, they're using this word because it sounds more severe, more dramatic than just saying laid off or cut. But to be clear, the verb acts in this context just means eliminate. It doesn't mean laid off. It could mean laid off or fired. Because remember,

if you're laid off, it means you lost your job. You no longer have a job. But it's because of operational reasons. There's just no more work for you. Your project is done or the company doesn't have enough money to pay you. If you're fired, it means that you were a bad employee. You submitted sloppy work again and again. You were not meeting expectations and you were constantly late and had a bad attitude. So, they fired you. Okay, so it's important to know that distinction. And axe just means eliminate. It could be laid off or fired or any combination. Let's keep reading. Meta, another

tech giant, big tech company, Meta, which has explicitly set out to create a super intelligent AI. So here, super intelligent being in quotation marks, it sounds like meta said this exact word, super intelligent. Now, they didn't necessarily say these other words, which is why only super intelligent is in quotation marks. The author wants you to know that this terminology comes from meta directly. Now, the use of explicitly is important. We learned reportedly previously.

We have it again here. Remember, reportedly is not fact. I heard it. I think it's true, but it's not confirmed as fact. It could just be a rumor. But explicitly means clearly said. clearly stated. So because they were used the word explicitly, we can take this as fact. Fact in the sense that Meta did say this. It's not a rumor. And the phrasal verb set out. Now notice the grammar. When you learn new vocabulary, whether it's a phrasal verb, a regular verb, an adjective, it does not matter. Learn the entire sentence structure. So you set out to do something. Now to

do tells you that you need the infinitive to plus base verb. And if you set out it means you have a clear plan or intention to do something. And the do in this case is create a super intelligent AI. Let's review these sentences. Last year I set out because set is an irregular verb. The past simple because we have last year is set. Last year, I set out to do something to improve my English. Does that describe you? Maybe it was last week or five years ago. Now, you could also say, I've set out the present perfect, but notice it's also set. I've set out to improve my English. So,

this is a past decision, but there's an impact in the present. What's the impact? Well, now you're watching my video. Now you're going to study every day after work. So there's a result or impact in the present. Now I imagine you have set out to improve your English. That's why you're here with me right now. So put let's go. If you're excited to improve your English, put let's go in the comments and let's keep going. Meta which has explicitly set out. Oh, notice this is in the present perfect and same reason. It's a past action in the sense that they

already set out. So it's a past action but there's a result in the present. The result is well let's find out. Meta which has explicitly set out to create a super intelligent AI reportedly we've heard this but we don't know if it's fact laid off 700 employees. So this is one of the results in the present while boosting a stock incentive program for a handful of top executives. Another result in the present a handful of this is a common quantity reference that we use. So if you say I have a handful of emails to reply to so a handful is singular because it's one hand. Okay?

So imagine if you take both hands and you scoop into a bucket, you can carry quite a bit. Let's say there's just rocks in that bucket. You could carry quite a few small rocks, stones, we'll say. But if you only have one handful, then the amount of stones is relatively small. Okay? Okay. So, if I say I have a handful of errands to run this weekend, I have a handful of emails in my inbox. It smells it sounds like some but a smaller quantity of because it's only the amount you can pick up with one hand, a handful of. So, some but on the smaller quantity side. Now notice, remember

I said it's singular because you only have one hand. The unit of measurement is executives. So that's plural. But here you could also say a stock incentive program for hundreds of talk top executives. So you would add an s to hundreds or a stock incentive program for 200. Now there's no s. Why? because I added a specific number two. When you don't have a specific number, you add an s. And then the unit of measurement in both cases, well, all three cases is executives. And you would have the s on the unit of measurement because there's more than one. Let's keep reading.

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. So, if you're surprised, it means that wow, I didn't expect that. So perhaps we shouldn't. Remember perhaps is the same meaning as maybe. Perhaps does sound slightly more formal. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. Big tech, tech giants, big tech executives. So now it's not just big tech, not the companies overall, it's the executives. So the senior leaders, big tech executives have long warned. So have warned but have long warned which means they have warned us for a long time. So you can just add long before warned to save having to

say big tech executives have warned us for a long time that AI would lead to job losses. So job losses this is general. It could be because people are being fired because of poor performance or laid off operational reasons. They perhaps again maybe they maybe they perhaps just forgot to mention those losses. Those losses meaning the job losses those losses wouldn't necessarily come from actual AI tools replacing human workers but rather is used when you have two choices would you rather this or that. So we have job losses from AI tools replacing human workers. If I can use an AI

to create a YouTube thumbnail automatically, then why would I pay a human to create that thumbnail? So that's an example of how an AI tool would replace a human worker. But remember that's one choice. So but rather from so saying the other choice the same business reasons as the pre-I era. So they're saying nothing to do with AI. Business reasons that have nothing to do with AI. That's what they mean as the same business reasons as the pre- AI era. So era meaning the age in which AI exists. And pre means of course before. So if it's pre- AI, it means before AI. People

talk a lot about preandemic, precoid, before the pandemic, before COVID. So, as the pre-AI era, so now they're going to tell us the business reason. When you spend too much, you usually end up having to cut costs. So, pretty they're saying it's a pretty basic business reason. If you spend too much money, you have to reduce your expenses. Okay? So, in a household scenario, if I spend more than I earn, well, then I'm going to have to reduce how much I spend on pleasure, on movies, on eating out, on groceries, on gas, maybe even on rent. So, that would be cut cost.

You can use this in an everyday sense as well. You might say to your significant other roommate, "We need to cut our expenses. We need to cut how much we spend on Uber Eats, on takeout." So, cut costs, reduce costs. Now, here you usually saying most of the time, but not always, you usually end up. So end up, this phrasal verb is very commonly used. It's talking about the end result. So I might say something like, I spent too much money on my vacation and I ended up having to ask my parents for a loan. Okay. So the end result it's saying that I only ask my parents for a loan

because of something else. So end up is used with the final result and having is in the ing form because up is a pres preposition. So of course you use the jarn verb the verb and ing. So this is the same business reason as the pre-ai era. You spend too much, you cut costs. Let's keep reading. Executives, senior leaders, executives have been quick to tie their staff cuts. So staff cuts, this is a noun and it remember cut here is a verb. So we had to cut staff. We had to reduce or eliminate

staff. Staff represents employees. Staff is an uncountable noun, which means it doesn't have an s. But the word employees is singular plural, so you would have an s. So staff cuss just refers to cutting staff as a thing. It's a something because it's a noun. And if you tie you something to something, it means you connect them. So here we have staff cuts, we have AI They're not independent, they're connected. So you can tie one thing to something else. So connect. So let's review this again. Executives have been quick to tie their staff cuts, their staff

reductions to AI in the most oblique possible terms. Oblique means vague, indirect, so not clear. If something is oblique, it means it isn't clear. Uh so they gave a very indirect answer, a very vague answer in the most oblique possible terms to avoid the harsher sounding reality. Many tech firms overhired. So hired means they said the job is yours. You're hired. The job is yours. So they hired people. But adding over makes it sound negative because if you over verb it means you do too much of that action. So if I say I over ate it means I ate too much and now I don't feel

very good. So I over ate or here in this case overhire. They hired too many people during the pandemic and now they are being squeezed by higher interest rates. So if you squeeze your arm, which I'm doing right now, you feel pressure on your arm. Okay? Now notice the sentence structure to be squeezed by. So if you're squeezed by someone or something, it means you feel pressure from that someone or something. So interest rates are high, which means it costs them more money to operate.

Now that is making them feel pressure because they have all these unexpected expenses and they have too much staff at the same time because they overhired. But it's not just interest rates because the list continues and now they are being squeezed. They feel the pressure from because you feel the pressure from something but you're squeezed by because this is the passive form. Okay? Because they're receiving the a the action. The subject doing the action is the higher interest rates. The higher interest rates are squeezing the c the companies just like I'm

squeezing my arm. In the passive, my arm is being squeezed by me. It's a funny sentence. They are being squeezed by higher interest rates, inflation, and their leaders own decisions to gamble on vague projections of AI's potential. If you gamble on something, it means you commit to something, but you don't know if what the result will be. Well, it's that you commit to something that has a high risk of success or failure. Just like when you go to Las Vegas or whatever place you're familiar with where gambling where you roll the dice and if it's seven you win. If it's any

other number you lose. Now if it's seven you could win big. But if it's any other number you could lose. So when you roll that dice you're gambling. So, if you make a business decision to invest billions of dollars in AI while the technology has not been proven, you're gambling just like you would at a casino. And it's the leader's own decisions to gamble on vague projections of AI's potential. Vague means just like oblique. It's not clear. No one said AI will improve your efficiency by 25%. Here's the data to support that. It's just AI could improve your efficiency. We don't

have any evidence because it's new technology. So that's the vague projections. A projection is something that you think may happen in the future. It's like a forecast. So a weather forecast people project they make predictions based on the future. But projections is generally used in a business terminology where you would project what your earnings your sales are going to be next quarter or next year. Let's keep reading. Oracle isn't alone in taking on debt to fuel its AI ambitions.

Notice the pronunciation debt. The B is totally silent. Just don't pronounce it. It does not exist. It's just debt. So the B is silent. It's just debt. Okay. Now, in a business context, debt would be a loan from a bank, receiving money from a bank that you have to pay the money back plus interest. So, it's not your money to keep and you take on which means you receive and it also sounds like it might also increase. And Oracle isn't alone. Remember, Oracle is a tech giant, a big tech company. So, by saying Oracle isn't alone in doing something,

in is a preposition, that's why we have this verb in ing. It means other tech giants are doing the same thing. The same thing being taking on receiving debt money that you have to pay back to fuel its AI ambitions. Fuel in this context means to progress to push forward because without a without fuel a car a vehicle cannot move forward. So to progress to move forward is AI ambitions. So ambitions in the sense of what the companies want to do with AI, the vision that they have for the future, but it has far less free cash flow. So free cash flow means cash available. That's

just cash flow means cash available. Free cash flow than many of its rivals. So in this case, Oracle specifically, they're talking specifically about this tech giant. Oracle has far less cash flow than many of its rivals. So it's saying that perhaps Meta or Amazon has more money to spend than Oracle. And Oracle is also concentrating its future AI on one giant customer, Open AI, which has never turned a profit. In the business world, if you turn a profit, the verb turn simply means make. Make a profit. And a profit is that you receive more money than you spend. That's

business profit. Now, they're talking about this one company specifically because remember the very first thing we read was that Oracle is reportedly laying off thousands of employees. So, it sounds like a large number, but reportedly means it isn't certain. It may not happen because it's based on what is heard, not fact. Let's keep reading. Bottom line, this is a very common business term, but you can use it outside of a business context. The bottom line is the most important thing. So, if you're having a conversation with your kids, maybe you talk for three minutes,

you give them a lot of information. They probably forgot most of what you said. And so you can say at the very end, the bottom line is if you don't clean your room, you're not getting you're not going to the movies this weekend or some consequence. So that's the bottom line. That's the most important thing I want you to remember from this three minutes that I've been talking. The bottom line. Now the is used in full sentence form, but in this case, they're just using the short form. So you can drop the and just say bottom line.

But you will also hear it very commonly with the bottom line with the because there's only one. So it's unique the bottom line. So this is the most important thing that the author wants you to remember. The white collar bloodbath forecast by tech luminaries has long been presented as the inevitable result of widespread AI adoption. Okay. tech luminaries. These are just the tech leaders who are forecasting what may happen in the future. So you can think of the image of the leaders. Those would be examples of tech luminaries. So tech leaders. Now white collar

is a relatively outdated term that refers to employees who do office work. So more so work that involves your mental ability rather than your physical ability like construction or um anything more physical. That would be blue collar. But those terms are relatively outdated. They're not used very commonly in 2026. The white collar blood bath. This just represents that a large number of professional workers are being laid off. So that's the blood bath. There's just a large number of them. The white collar blood bath forecast so predicted by forecast by tech luminaries has

long been presented as the inevitable result. If something is inevitable, it means that it will happen. The inevitable result of widespread AI adoption that makes typical computer jobs obsolete. So obsolete just does not exist anymore. Again, my example, why would I pay someone to design my thumbnail if I can just press a button and a AI will generate it for me? So that job is just obsolete. It doesn't exist anymore. There's no evidence AI is meaningfully replacing workers at scale. So here there's no evidence. So evidence does not exist that AI is meaningful replacing.

This word is important because I'm sure there is evidence that people are losing their jobs because of AI. But meaningfully means to a large degree. So maybe yeah maybe 1% of people or a small number but meaningfully would be 25% of the workforce or 50% a large number meaningfully replacing workers at scale. However, so far, so far until now. So far, the only major labor disruption, so we saw labor disruption previously as well, has come from company leaders who have tied their businesses. Remember, tied means they connected their businesses to something else. So

you know you're going to have the preposition to because you already learned that you tie something to something connect. So the business leaders, the company leaders who have tied their businesses to a technology AI that has yet to live up to its own hype. So if something lives up to the hype, hype being expectations. So, we I expect that AI will produce a thumbnail, a YouTube thumbnail as good as the ones that a human produces. And then if I use this AI tool and I press enter and it generates a thumbnail and it's as good as the human thumbnails, I can say it lived up to the

hype because my expectation was here. And if it lives up to it, it means it meets my expectation. Otherwise, I can say it didn't live up to the hype. I can just make it negative. And that means that it didn't meet expectations. Now, here they're not saying it didn't live up to the hype because that's presenting it as a completed time reference. But here they're using the present perfect has yet to live up to its own hype. So, has yet to do something means that it's still

possible for it to do it in the future. It just hasn't done it yet. Just like if I say I haven't been to Turkey, I can go to Turkey next year or even in five years or 10 years. So if I say I didn't go to Turkey, there has to be a completed timeline like I didn't go to Turkey last summer. I haven't gone to Turkey yet. I haven't yet gone to Turkey. I have yet to go to Turkey. That would be this sentence structure. I have yet to go to Turkey. That's this sentence structure. It's not

the most common sentence structure. It's a more emphatic form. So, it sounds more dramatic. So, the alternative sentence structure that they're using here, it sounds more emphatic. I have yet to go to Turkey. the regular sentence structure, which you will use 95% of the time because it's what I use 95% of the time. I don't remember the last time I use this sentence structure, just to be honest with you. But I would use it if I really wanted to emphasize something, but the regular sentence structure, which I use 95% of the time, is I haven't gone to Turkey yet. And yet is

optional, which is why it is in parenthesis. And remember for a past action, I didn't go to Turkey last summer. That's the past simple. And that's the end of the article. So what I'll do now is I'll read the article from start to finish and you can focus on my pronunciation. Big tech promised AI would disrupt labor, just not like this. Oracle is reportedly laying off thousands of employees, adding to an already long list of tech giants cutting staff while spending hundreds of billions of dollars on AI data centers. Microsoft laid off 15,000 people last year and Amazon acts 16,000

jobs in January. Meta, which has explicitly set out to create a super intelligent AI, reportedly laid off 700 employees while boosting a stock incentive program for a handful of top executives. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. Big tech executives have long warned that AI would lead to job losses. They perhaps just forgot to mention those losses wouldn't necessarily come from actual AI tools replacing human workers, but rather from the same business reasons as the preAI era. When you spend too much, you usually end up having to cut costs. Executives have been quick to

tie their staff cuts to AI in the most oblique possible terms to avoid the harsher sounding reality. Many tech firms overhired during the pandemic and now they are being squeezed by higher interest rates, inflation, and their leaders own decisions to gamble on vague projections of AI's potential. Oracle isn't alone in taking on debt to fuel its AI ambitions. But it has far less free cash flow than many of its rivals. And Oracle is also contra conc concentrating its AI future on one giant customer, Open AI, which has never turned to profit. Bottom line,

the white collar bloodbath forecast by tech luminaries has long been presented as the inevitable result of widespread AI adoption that makes typical computer jobs obsolete. There's no evidence AI is meaningfully replacing workers at scale. However, so far the only major labor disruption has come from company leaders who have tied their businesses to a technology that has yet to live up to its own hype. Amazing job. Do you want to keep learning English with the news? If you do, put yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Put yes, yes, yes in the comments below. And of course,

make sure you like this lesson, share it with your friends, and subscribe so you're notified every time I post a new lesson. And you can get this free speaking guide where I share six tips on how to speak English fluently and confidently. You can click here to download it or look for the link in the description. And here's another lesson I know you'll love. Watch it now.