Wow, you should not be a teacher then! Using a stock phrase is something that students are extremely likely to do as they read online content and learn to formulate their own voice. A single phrase can only be considered as extremely circumstantial evidence. You are not a reliable AI detection machine, regardless of what you may have convinced yourself of.

Btw, out of curiosity, what is your (or your school's) official policy on AI usage?

Your sample size of 2 is interesting but doesn't mean much. I'm definitely open to alternative explanations, but I'd like to hear why you don't find it credible that people report AI being associated with job cuts. I know lots of people on Lemmy have a hard-on for dissing AI, but AI doesn't even need to be functional for it to be associated with job cuts. In fact, shitty executive decisions would directly explain AI being associated with lots of job cuts.