According to a report by TechCrunch, the Tel Aviv-based work management software company Monday.com, known for its colorful project-tracking boards, became the latest tech company this week to cite artificial intelligence (AI) as a factor in employee layoffs. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company announced that it will lay off about 20% of its workforce, representing just over 600 employees, as part of a restructuring plan for its products, marketing, and go-to-market strategy. The move is designed to support a leaner, more focused operating model as the company continues to invest in its AI-driven growth strategy. Co-founder Eran Zinman clarified in an internal memo on LinkedIn that the move was not intended to reduce costs or directly replace people with AI, but rather to align the organization with its new AI-first vision established roughly a year earlier during a company-wide rebranding around a comprehensive AI platform. Monday.com, which has two offices in the U.S., expects net restructuring charges of $45 million to $55 million, but still projects year-over-year revenue growth of up to 20% for 2026.
The General Landscape of Tech Layoffs and the Market Impact of AI
According to an analysis by the Financial Times (FT), U.S. tech companies have carried out significant cuts, laying off close to 140,000 employees since the beginning of this year. Tech giants Amazon, Oracle, Meta, and Microsoft alone account for nearly 50,000 of these job cuts as they funnel hundreds of billions of dollars into building data centers for artificial intelligence. However, the FT's data analysis reveals an interesting finding: companies that cited AI as a factor in layoffs underperformed the Nasdaq index by almost 10% during the 30 trading days following their announcements, suggesting that the market does not entirely buy these explanations. Conversely, companies focused on developing artificial intelligence, such as OpenAI and Anthropic, are hiring rapidly and absorbing some of the talent displaced from the wider industry.
Downsizing and Reallocating Resources at Tech Giants
Major industry players are implementing efficiency measures that combine layoffs with targeted resource reallocation:
- Microsoft: On July 9, 2026, the company cut approximately 4,800 roles (about 2.1% of its global workforce), primarily in its Xbox gaming division, three years after acquiring Activision Blizzard for $75 billion. CFO Amy Hood noted that total headcount declined in the fiscal third quarter and is expected to continue declining, with the goal of building faster, more agile teams amid growing investments in AI.
- Oracle: The company reported in June 2026 that it had reduced its workforce by 21,000 employees over the preceding 12 months (a 13% decline). In its annual report, the company stated that the adoption and deployment of AI technologies across its operations have led, and may continue to lead, to workforce reductions. These cuts were made despite a quarterly net income of $3.7 billion (a 27% year-over-year increase) and a remaining performance backlog that surged by 325% to $553 billion, with the savings redirected toward AI-powered data centers.
- Google: The company laid off employees across its Cloud division, including the Threat Intelligence Group and cybersecurity staff associated with Mandiant, despite Cloud revenue growing by 63% and exceeding the $20 billion threshold for the first time. The company also reduced the number of managers overseeing small teams by more than a third (a 35% decrease in managers). The cuts were executed through performance evaluation processes, voluntary buyout programs, and structural reorganizations, with external estimates placing the 2026 total at between 1,500 and over 3,000 engineers laid off.
- Meta: On May 20-21, 2026, the company laid off approximately 8,000 employees (about 10% of its workforce) while transferring roughly 7,000 other employees into new AI-focused roles. CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees that the cuts were necessary because success in the field of AI is not a given.
Structural Changes at GitLab, Intuit, and Infrastructure and Communication Companies
- GitLab: On June 3, 2026, the company laid off approximately 350 employees (about 14% of its staff) to fund AI infrastructure investments and handle surging traffic from AI-driven workloads. CEO Bill Staples noted that the company has begun a "generational rebuild" of its core infrastructure to support 100x growth requirements, and that the company is exiting 22 countries and flattening management layers.
- Intuit: Announced plans to eliminate roughly 3,000 jobs (about 17% of its workforce) in a restructuring aimed at reducing complexity and reallocating resources toward AI. CEO Sasan Goodarzi explained that the goal of the move is to simplify the organizational structure to deliver better products.
- Cisco: Laid off nearly 4,000 employees (about 5% of its workforce), despite reporting better-than-expected profit and revenue. CFO Mark Patterson clarified that this was not a savings-driven restructure, but rather a realignment of resources around silicon, optics, security, and AI.
- Cloudflare: Laid off about 20% of its workforce (1,100 employees), despite reporting the highest quarterly revenue in its history at $639.8 million (a 34% increase). CEO Matthew Prince explained that the vast majority of those laid off were in oversight and measurement roles, including middle management, finance, legal, internal auditing, and revenue recognition.
- General Motors: The company eliminated between 500 and 600 jobs, primarily in IT roles in Austin, Texas, and Warren, Michigan. Sources close to the matter stated that AI played a role in the decision, though it was not the sole reason. The company stated that it is transforming its Information Technology organization to better position itself for the future.
AI as a Tool for Efficiency and Flattening Management Layers
Several companies explained their cuts by pointing to dramatic improvements in work efficiency enabled by artificial intelligence:
- Coinbase: Cut about 700 jobs (14% of its staff) to address market volatility and increase AI efficiency. The company flattened its structure to just five layers below the CEO and COO, and began experimenting with "one-person teams" combining engineering, design, and product roles. CEO Brian Armstrong explained that engineers are using AI to deliver outputs in just a few days, a task that previously required weeks of work by an entire team.
- PayPal: Plans to cut about 20% of its workforce over the next two to three years (more than 4,500 jobs). CEO Enrique Lores told investors that the company will aggressively adopt AI in its development processes and has formed a dedicated team reporting directly to him. Lores explained that AI will assist beyond coding, extending into customer service, support operations, and risk management.
- Snap: Laid off about 16% of its global workforce (approximately 1,000 employees). CEO Evan Spiegel noted that rapid advancements in AI allow teams to reduce repetitive work, increase speed, and better support the community and advertisers.
Restructuring and Role Replacement at IBM, Atlassian, Dell, Block, Salesforce, and Amazon
- IBM: Estimates for the number of eliminated U.S. positions range from 3,000 to 9,000, bringing the company's cumulative cuts since September 2024 to over 15,000 roles. Alongside this, the company plans to triple entry-level hiring for AI and hybrid-cloud roles, while approximately 200 HR positions were replaced by AI agents.
- Atlassian: Cut about 1,600 jobs (10%) to rebalance its resources toward AI and enterprise sales. CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes emphasized that this was not about replacing people, but rather a change in the required mix of skills.
- Dell: The company's workforce was reduced by about 10% (approximately 11,000 jobs) in fiscal year 2026, while the company projects that its revenue from AI-optimized servers could double in fiscal year 2027.
- Block: The company, led by Jack Dorsey, laid off 4,000 employees—nearly half of its workforce. Dorsey wrote on X that the intelligence tools the company is creating and using, combined with smaller and flatter teams, are fundamentally changing how a company is managed and built.
- Salesforce: Laid off fewer than 1,000 employees, including within its Agentforce AI business unit. The company reported that the adoption of Agentforce led to a decline in the number of support cases and that it no longer needs to actively backfill support engineer roles of departed employees. This followed an earlier cut of about 4,000 customer support roles.
- Amazon: Laid off 16,000 corporate employees in January 2026, after cutting 14,000 roles in October 2025. CEO Andy Jassy previously noted that the rising use of generative AI and intelligent agents will change how work is done and reduce the need for corporate headcount in the coming years.