Topline
Meta is will layoff 10% of its workforce, the company told employees in a memo Thursday, and won’t hire workers for 6,000 open jobs in hopes of offsetting the money it’s spending to integrate artificial intelligence into the company in the latest corporate shakeup blamed on AI this year.
Meta CEO and billionaire Mark Zuckerberg.
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Timeline
Meta’s announced job cuts, roughly 8,000 scheduled for May 20, are part of a plan initially reported by Reuters to layoff what could amount to more than 20% of the company (which employs roughly 75,000 people) as it invests in AI and plans to utilize AI-assisted workers.
Billionaire Evan Spiegel told employees of Snap, the parent company of social media app Snapchat, that 1,000 jobs would be cut because “rapid advancements in artificial intelligence” will allow the same work to be done by a smaller group of people. The move is expected to save the company $500 million by the second half of 2026.
Oracle, founded by billionaire Larry Ellison, is cutting 20,000 to 30,000 employees as the company heavily invests in building out AI infrastructure.
Meta, led by the world’s fifth-richest-person Mark Zuckerberg, laid off 700 people, the New York Times reported, in cuts that “underline how much A.I. has changed the tech industry.”
Crypto.com laid off 12%, or about 180, of its employees as it integrates “enterprise-wide AI,” with CEO Kris Marszalek explaining the jobs that were cut were “roles that do not adapt in our new world.”
Software company Atlassian cut roughly 10% of its workforce—1,600 people—in order to “self-fund further investment in AI,” with co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes saying he “fundamentally believes people and AI create the best outcomes.”
Block, billionaire Jack Dorsey‘s company, cut more than 4,000 jobs (almost half the company’s staff) in a major restructuring to integrate AI and create smaller, faster teams.
Software company WiseTech Global said it’s eliminating about one-third of employees (2,000 jobs) over the next two years to restructure around artificial intelligence.
It was first reported that Salesforce laid off fewer than 1,000 people in marketing, product management, data analytics and the company’s Agentforce AI product at the start of the year, cuts that came about six months after Salesforce CEO and billionaire Marc Benioff blamed AI for axing 4,000 support staff jobs.
Social media platform Pinterest said it would cut about 15% of its workforce (about 800 people based on a headcount of 5,200 at the end of 2025) to reallocate money toward AI-focused roles, sending its stock tumbling nearly 10%.
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Crucial Quote
“Companies are shifting budgets toward AI investments at the expense of jobs,” said Andy Challenger, workplace expert and chief revenue officer at career services firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “The actual replacing of roles can be seen in technology companies, where AI can replace coding functions. Other industries are testing the limits of this new technology, and while it can’t replace jobs completely, it is costing jobs.”
Big Number
30,000. That’s how many layoffs have been blamed on AI so far this year, according to Challenger. AI was cited for almost 55,000 cuts in 2025.
Key Background
Tech CEOs have recently warned middle management and white collar jobs are likely to be the most vulnerable in the AI renaissance. Billionaire Dario Amodei, founder and CEO of AI giant Anthropic, last year said artificial intelligence could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and send unemployment soaring. He accused AI companies and government officials of “sugar-coating” the reality that mass job eliminations are likely coming in technology, finance, law and other sectors. Dorsey and former Sequoia managing partner Roelof Botha last month said they think AI can do much of what middle managers, or about 12% of the workforce, do today. Just Capital, a nonprofit that conducts business-related polling, this week said one-third of the public worries about significant layoffs due to AI displacing roles. More than half of corporate leaders polled said they think hiring will slow for entry-level positions in the coming years, and that remaining jobs will require employees to be more skilled than before. Other analysis suggests tech jobs are much more at risk than roles in other sectors. America’s Census Bureau estimates that companies in tech-heavy areas like San Francisco, Boston and Seattle are using AI at a much higher rate than the rest of the country.
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