Monday.com just laid off hundreds of employees and cited artificial intelligence as the reason the company no longer needs them. That makes 21 major tech firms in roughly two years that have publicly pointed at AI while handing out pink slips. According to Layoffs.fyi, more than 150,000 tech workers lost jobs in 2026 alone. The workers caught off guard thought their skills made them safe.
How We Got Here
Monday.com confirmed cuts affecting roughly 10% of its global workforce in July 2026. Leadership said AI productivity tools now handle work that previously required full teams. The company isn’t in trouble. It’s profitable and growing. That’s the part most people miss.
The pattern picked up speed in 2023. According to IBM’s public announcement, the company paused hiring for approximately 7,800 back-office roles. CEO Arvind Krishna stated AI could handle many of those functions within five years. Klarna went further. According to CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski, the company’s AI assistant handled the equivalent work of 700 full-time agents, helping shrink the workforce from 5,000 to under 4,000 employees in under two years.
Duolingo cut 10% of its contractor workforce in early 2024 and named AI-generated content as the reason it needed fewer human creators. Dropbox CEO Drew Houston specifically cited AI when announcing 500 layoffs. Chegg’s stock dropped over 40% in a single trading session after ChatGPT disrupted its core tutoring business, according to Bloomberg. These weren’t struggling companies. They were companies that found a cheaper way to produce the same output.
The Full List of 21
Here are all 21 companies that have publicly cited AI as a factor in workforce reductions since 2023:
- Monday.com (2026, approximately 10% of workforce)
- Klarna (2024, workforce reduced by roughly 1,200 employees)
- IBM (2023, 7,800 back-office roles paused)
- Duolingo (2024, 10% of contractors)
- Dropbox (2023, 500 employees)
- Chegg (2024, AI disrupted core business model)
- Salesforce (2024, 700 Slack team roles)
- Google (multiple rounds, 2023 to 2026)
- Microsoft (multiple rounds, 2023 to 2026)
- Meta (2023 to 2024, efficiency restructuring)
- Amazon (2024, Alexa and devices division)
- Shopify (2023, CEO memo cited AI automation)
- Workday (2024, 1,750 employees)
- Indeed (2023, cited AI in recruitment automation)
- Intuit (2024, 1,800 employees)
- HubSpot (2024, approximately 500 employees)
- SAP (2024, major restructuring citing AI)
- Cisco (2024, two rounds totaling over 10,000 roles)
- Intel (2024, over 15,000 roles)
- UPS (2024, 12,000 management positions)
- Xerox (2024, 15% of workforce)
According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, 41% of employers expect to reduce headcount due to AI automation by 2030. These 21 companies aren’t the exception. They’re the preview.
What Everyone Is Getting Wrong About This
The mainstream take is that AI layoffs are a corporate trend and workers just need to adapt. That’s too simple and too soft.
Look at the companies on this list. Most of them aren’t losing money. Klarna IPO’d at a massive valuation. IBM’s AI revenue grew 64% year over year, according to IBM’s most recent earnings report. Monday.com has been profitable for multiple quarters. These companies aren’t cutting to survive. They’re cutting to improve margins while revenue holds or grows.
That’s a fundamentally different problem than a recession layoff. A recession layoff ends when the economy recovers. A productivity-driven cut is permanent. The headcount doesn’t come back. The work gets done differently, with fewer people and more machines.
Here’s what I’d be asking if I worked at any company in these sectors. Does my work produce a clear, measurable output? If someone handed that output to an AI tool tomorrow, would the result be 80% as good? That question is uncomfortable. It’s also the one your CFO is already running in a spreadsheet.
The rich vs. poor mindset split on this is clean. The poor mindset waits and hopes the cuts stop before reaching their desk. The owner mindset asks who’s buying the output now that it’s cheaper to produce. Content, code, customer service responses, research reports: all of these get produced at a fraction of the prior cost. The people who win are the ones directing that production, not being replaced by it.
Creators building their own media operations are already proving this. I’ve watched people run full video publishing businesses with InVideo AI that would have required a three-person team and a production budget two years ago. One person. Full output. No corporate risk on the table.
What I Would Do Starting This Week
If your job is at any company in a similar sector, here’s the play I’d run right now.
First, pick one AI tool in your field and go deep on it this month. Not a tutorial. Not a course. Actually produce something with it every week until you understand its limits better than anyone on your team. The people getting cut are doing tasks. The people staying are making decisions about what gets built and catching when the machine gets it wrong.
Second, start building something outside your paycheck. Even a small one. A newsletter, a consulting project, a product, anything where the revenue flows directly to you. The companies on this list cut headcount fast when the math made sense. You should have the same flexibility on your side before you need it, not after.
Third, if you’re evaluating software for a side project or a small team, look for lifetime deals before mainstream adoption drives prices up. AppSumo is where I check first when I need a tool that isn’t yet a household name but already does the work at a fraction of the SaaS subscription price.
The goal isn’t panic. The goal is to stop being surprised by the next announcement and start being positioned to benefit from it instead.
The Bottom Line
Twenty-one profitable, growing companies just told you directly: they’d rather pay for AI output than your salary. That’s not a trend. That’s a decision. The workers watching from the sidelines are running out of sidelines. The people building their own output engines right now won’t appear on anyone’s layoff list. They’ll be building the thing that someone else gets replaced by.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did Monday.com blame AI for its layoffs?
Monday.com stated that AI tools now handle work that previously required larger teams, making its current headcount higher than the business needs. This follows the same explanation given by IBM, Klarna, Duolingo, and Dropbox in prior years. When profitable companies say this, the decision is permanent, not a temporary cost cut.
Which tech companies have cited AI as a reason for layoffs?
At least 21 major tech firms have publicly cited AI as a factor in workforce reductions since 2023, including Klarna, IBM, Duolingo, Dropbox, Salesforce, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Shopify. The full list spans every major tech sector from SaaS platforms to enterprise hardware to logistics and e-commerce.
Will tech company AI layoffs continue through 2026 and beyond?
According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, 41% of global employers expect to reduce headcount due to AI automation by 2030. With profitable companies already acting on that forecast well ahead of schedule, the pace will likely hold or accelerate rather than slow down.
What types of jobs are AI replacing first?
Roles producing content, handling customer inquiries, entering data, writing basic code, and generating research reports face the most immediate pressure. According to Goldman Sachs research, roughly 300 million full-time positions globally could be affected by AI automation in some form, with white-collar knowledge work facing earlier disruption than physical labor roles.
How can workers protect themselves from AI-driven layoffs?
Workers least at risk are those who direct AI tools, evaluate output quality, and take responsibility for strategic decisions rather than routine task completion. Building income streams outside a single employer also reduces exposure significantly. The companies on this list cut fast when the numbers supported it. Having options before you need them is the only real hedge.
