How AI Changed One Family’s Life Overnight

For most of my adult life, I thought food insecurity was something that happened to other people.

I grew up in Salford, worked hard, built a career, and eventually found myself leading part of a marketing division for a major national company. Life was comfortable. We had a nice home, family holidays, a company car, and all the things that come with years of climbing the corporate ladder. Our conversations revolved around where we would go away in the summer, not whether we could afford groceries for the week.

Then everything changed.

Within the space of a year, advances in AI transformed our industry. First came restructuring, then redundancies, and eventually my entire department disappeared. Overnight, a career I had spent decades building was gone.

At first, I believed I would quickly find another role. I had experience, seniority, and a strong track record. But months passed. Then more months. Interviews became fewer. The savings started disappearing. The bills did not stop.

This past Pesach was the first time in my life I genuinely did not know how we would afford Yom Tov.

Matzos. Wine. Meat. Basic essentials.

I remember sitting with my wife calculating food costs and thinking: “How did we get here?” I have never had to worry for anything before. We were the family people assumed was doing well — and from the outside, maybe we still look that way. We still live in the same house. We still have one of the cars.

But the reality behind closed doors is very different.

Since Pesach, L’chaim Foodbank has carried us through. And now, approaching Shavuos, I feel embarrassed even admitting this, but without their help we simply would not be able to afford basics like cheese, yogurts, or the ingredients for a cheesecake for Yom Tov.

No one around us really knows. Every day feels like we are treading water, trying to keep normality together for our children while quietly wondering how much longer we can manage.

I never imagined I would need a foodbank.

But I also never imagined how quickly life could change.