KPMG is folding its AI work into one group whose leader, Todd Lohr, reports directly to CEO Tim Walsh starting October 1. Separately, Verizon launched a $70 million free AI training program today, and $20 million of it is the fund Verizon set up for the more than 13,000 employees it cut last November.
By the Numbers
$70 million: total commitment behind Verizon AI Skills for America, of which $50 million is new money (Verizon)
13,000+: jobs Verizon cut in November 2025, when it created the $20 million transition fund now folded into the program (CNBC)
$700+: Verizon’s estimate of what comparable AI training costs one person per year, now offered free (Verizon)
40 of 45: citations GPTZero found fabricated in a KPMG International report in June, three months before the firm’s AI reorganization (Fortune)
Layoffs and Company Decisions
KPMG puts one AI leader in the CEO’s room
KPMG LLP is folding its AI, innovation, and technology-partner functions into a new Client Technology & Innovation group, announced September 22 and effective October 1. Todd Lohr, a 15-year KPMG veteran who helped put together the firm’s alliance with Anthropic, will run it as a vice chair reporting directly to CEO Tim Walsh. The group owns four mandates: the products KPMG sells, new deal structures, firmwide AI and data strategy, and an internal venture studio that launches new businesses built to compete with KPMG’s own service lines. Lohr plans to rotate rising staff through those ventures as founders and operators before they return to audit, tax, and advisory roles. The change coincides with the September 30 retirement of Steve Chase, who built KPMG’s first AI group in 2023, and follows a June finding by GPTZero that 40 of 45 citations in a KPMG International report were fabricated.
Fortune, Nick Lichtenberg, September 22, 2026. Read the report
Why it matters: Reporting lines decide whose trade-offs win, and KPMG just moved AI out of the committee layers and next to the CEO. Other firms can copy the rotation without building an incubator: it sends rising staff back to client work after they have priced and shipped a product themselves.
Reskilling and Education
Verizon folds its layoff fund into a $70 million AI training program
Verizon today launched Verizon AI Skills for America, a $70 million program offering free AI courses from IBM, Google, Anthropic, Microsoft, Coursera, and OpenAI through one Verizon portal, with local coaching from Goodwill Industries International, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, and the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship. Fifty million dollars is new. The other $20 million is the Reskilling and Career Transition Fund CEO Dan Schulman created in November 2025, when Verizon cut more than 13,000 jobs. The program is open to job seekers, early-career workers, displaced workers, educators, and small businesses; in-person support starts in select regional markets only. In April, Schulman told Axios that white-collar joblessness could reach 20 to 30 percent within two to five years if companies and government move slowly on retraining, and he challenged other Fortune 100 CEOs to co-fund transition programs. Verizon’s announcement sets no enrollment target and reports no job-placement results.
Verizon, September 23, 2026. Read the release. Background: CNBC, November 20, 2025, Verizon’s job cuts; Axios, Jim VandeHei, April 27, 2026, Schulman’s warning.
Why it matters: Verizon tied its public AI-skills program to the workforce it cut, which makes the math checkable: $20 million across more than 13,000 departing employees comes to about $1,500 a person. The next figure to ask Verizon for is placement: how many of those employees are working again, and at what pay.
What Workforce Leaders Are Watching
Whether an AI leader who reports to the CEO gets authority over role design and headcount plans, or stops at tools and vendor partnerships.
How a firm counts time spent running an internal venture toward promotion, and who covers that person’s billable-hour target in the meantime.
Whether Verizon publishes placement and wage results for its departing employees, and whether any other Fortune 100 company answers Schulman’s call to co-fund transition programs.
Whether severance packages should carry a set retraining allowance, sized against the $700-plus annual training cost Verizon cites.
This briefing was prepared automatically by the Workforce Rewired research assistant. All stories include direct source links.