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Monday.com Joins the AI Layoff Club, and It's Got Plenty of Company

Another week, another tech company blaming AI for layoffs. This time it's Monday.com, the colorful project management software company, which announced it's letting go of about 600 people—roughly 20% of its workforce. The official reason? A "restructuring plan" tied to its "ongoing transformation of product, marketing, and go-to-market strategies" to support a "more streamlined and focused operating model." Translation: AI is changing how they work, and some jobs are no longer needed.

Co-founder Eran Zinman tried to soften the blow in a LinkedIn post, saying the move wasn't about cutting costs or replacing people with AI, but about adapting to an "AI-first vision" the company set about a year ago. The restructuring will cost between $45 million and $55 million, but Monday.com still expects revenue to grow by up to 20% in 2026.

Monday.com is just the latest ripple in a much bigger wave. According to the Financial Times, nearly 140,000 employees have been laid off by U.S. tech companies so far this year. Amazon, Oracle, Meta, and Microsoft alone account for nearly 50,000 of those. Meanwhile, these same companies are investing hundreds of billions into AI data centers. The Financial Times also spotted an interesting pattern: companies that cite AI as a reason for layoffs tend to underperform the Nasdaq by an average of 10% within 30 trading days of their announcements. The market, it seems, isn't entirely convinced.

Not all the news is gloomy. AI-native companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are hiring like crazy. Meta moved about 7,000 people into AI roles (while laying off 8,000). And IBM says it has tripled entry-level hiring in AI and hybrid cloud.

Here's a look at the growing list of big companies that have publicly tied layoffs to AI:

  • Microsoft laid off about 4,800 people on July 9, mostly in its Xbox gaming division—a reset after its Activision Blizzard acquisition. The company said the positions were "not replaced by AI," but acknowledged that "AI is changing how work is done." CFO Amy Hood noted that headcount dropped year-over-year in the third quarter and expected further declines.

  • Oracle disclosed on June 22 that it had cut 21,000 jobs over the past 12 months—a 13% reduction. Its annual filing was blunt: "The adoption and deployment of AI technology across our operations have already led, and may continue to lead, to a reduction in our workforce." Meanwhile, net income rose 27% to $3.7 billion, and remaining performance obligations surged 325% to $553 billion, with savings directed into AI data centers.

  • GitLab laid off about 350 people (14%) on June 3 to fund AI infrastructure and handle traffic from AI workflows. It exited 22 countries, flattened its management hierarchy, and partnered with an AI lab to rebuild its platform. CEO Bill Staples said intelligent agent workloads are pushing competitors "to the edge." First-quarter revenue was $264 million, up 23%.

  • Google extended layoffs through May 2026, focusing on its Cloud division, including threat intelligence teams and cybersecurity personnel from Mandiant. Through rolling performance reviews, buyouts, and reorganization, an estimated 1,500 to 3,000 engineers will be let go. Irony alert: Cloud revenue jumped 63% year-over-year to over $20 billion, and backlogged orders nearly doubled to over $46 billion.

  • Intuit laid off about 3,000 people (17%) on May 20. CEO Sasan Goodarzi said the goal was to reduce complexity and shift toward AI.

  • Meta laid off about 8,000 people (10%) between May 20 and 21, while moving around 7,000 into AI roles—a move that reportedly caused employee backlash. Zuckerberg's reasoning: "Success with AI is not guaranteed."

  • Cisco laid off nearly 4,000 people (5%) on May 14, despite record financial results. CFO Mark Patterson said it wasn't cost-cutting but a reallocation of resources around chips, optical modules, security, and AI.

  • Cloudflare laid off about 20% (1,100 people) on May 7-8, with quarterly revenue hitting a record $639.8 million (up 34%). CEO Matthew Prince said the cuts targeted "mostly measurers"—middle management, finance, legal, internal audit, and revenue recognition roles.

  • General Motors laid off 500 to 600 IT staff in Austin and Warren on May 12, citing a transformation of its IT organization while retaining about 80 open positions, including AI roles.

  • Coinbase laid off about 700 people (14%) on May 5, flattening its hierarchy to five levels below CEO/COO and experimenting with "one-person teams." CEO Brian Armstrong said AI allows "engineers to complete work that took a team weeks in just days."

  • PayPal announced on the same day it would lay off about 20% (over 4,500 people) over the next two to three years, with CEO Enrique Lores emphasizing the need for "aggressive AI adoption."

  • Snap laid off about 1,000 people (16%) on April 16. CEO Evan Spiegel said "the rapid progress in AI has allowed our teams to reduce repetitive work and increase speed."

  • IBM laid off between 3,000 and 9,000 U.S. employees through 2026, with about 200 HR positions replaced by AI bots. Since September 2024, over 15,000 employees have been let go.

  • Atlassian laid off about 1,600 people (10%) on March 11, shifting focus to AI and enterprise sales. CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes: "Our approach is not 'AI replacing people,' but pretending AI doesn't change staffing is not honest."

  • Dell cut its workforce by about 10% (roughly 11,000 people) in fiscal year 2026, with severance costs of $569 million. It expects AI-optimized server revenue to double in fiscal 2027.

  • Block laid off 4,000 people (nearly half its staff) on February 26-27. Jack Dorsey said, "We've seen smart tools create a new way of working."

  • Salesforce laid off fewer than 1,000 people on February 10, after already cutting 4,000 customer service roles. Benioff explicitly stated that AI bots are doing the work, so "there are fewer heads."

  • Amazon laid off 16,000 company positions on January 28 (including 14,000 in October 2025), about 9% of its workforce in three months. CEO Andy Jassy had warned in June 2025 that as generative AI expands, "fewer people will do some jobs... our total company headcount will decrease."

From Amazon's 16,000 at the start of the year to Monday.com's 600 in the summer, AI has cut through almost every major company in 2026. Each layoff tells the same story: models are getting smarter, and headcounts are shrinking. But the market keeps casting its skeptical votes through stock prices.

Key Points

  • Monday.com lays off 20% of staff (600 people) citing AI-driven restructuring.
  • Nearly 140,000 tech workers laid off in the U.S. this year; companies blame AI while investing billions in it.
  • Companies citing AI for layoffs underperform Nasdaq by 10% on average within 30 days.
  • AI-native firms like Anthropic and OpenAI are hiring; Meta shifts 7,000 into AI roles.
  • The list of major companies tying layoffs to AI includes Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Meta, and many more.