AI layoffs have become one of the defining workforce stories in technology this year. The latest example is Monday.com, which said it will cut about 20% of its workforce, or just over 600 employees, as part of a restructuring plan tied to a broader AI-driven strategy.
The pattern is larger than one company. U.S. tech companies have cut nearly 140,000 jobs since the start of this year, according to Financial Times analysis cited in the source article, while some of the same employers continue to invest heavily in AI data center buildouts and AI-focused teams.
Monday.com joins the AI restructuring wave
Monday.com, the Tel Aviv-based work management software company, disclosed on Wednesday in an SEC filing that it will lay off about 20% of its workforce. The company described the move as part of a “restructuring plan” connected to its “ongoing transformation of its product, marketing, and go-to-market strategy” and a push toward “a leaner, more focused operating model.”
The company also connected the restructuring to its continued investment in an “AI-driven growth strategy.” Monday.com expects $45 million to $55 million in net restructuring charges, while still projecting up to 20% year-over-year revenue growth for 2026.
Co-founder Eran Zinman told employees in a LinkedIn memo that the decision “was not made to reduce costs or replace people with AI.” Instead, he framed the layoffs as part of adapting the organization to an AI-first vision the company introduced roughly a year ago, when it rebranded around a platform-wide AI push.
Big cuts, bigger AI spending
The Financial Times analysis cited in the source article found that Amazon, Oracle, Meta, and Microsoft together account for almost 50,000 of the nearly 140,000 U.S. tech jobs cut since the start of this year. Those cuts are happening as companies direct hundreds of billions of dollars toward AI data center buildouts.
The message from employers is not always that AI is directly replacing every eliminated role. More often, companies describe a reallocation of resources, a reduction in organizational layers, or a shift in the skills they need.
That distinction matters. Several companies are cutting in some areas while hiring or moving workers into AI-related roles elsewhere. The source article notes that AI-focused companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are hiring rapidly, while some larger employers are reshaping headcount internally rather than only shrinking it.
- Meta laid off about 8,000 employees while moving about 7,000 employees into new AI-focused roles.
- IBM says it is tripling entry-level hiring for AI and hybrid-cloud roles alongside recent cuts.
- General Motors still had roughly 80 open IT positions, including roles in AI, motorsports, and autonomous vehicles, despite eliminating 500 to 600 jobs.
How companies are explaining the shift
Microsoft cut about 4,800 roles on July 9, 2026, or 2.1% of its global workforce, with most of the cuts in its Xbox gaming unit. The company said the role eliminations were “not being replaced by AI,” while also acknowledging that “AI is changing how work gets done.”
Oracle disclosed on June 22, 2026, that it had reduced its workforce by 21,000 employees over the past 12 months, a decline of 13%. In an annual financial regulatory filing, the company said: “The adoption and deployment of AI technologies across our operations have resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce.”
GitLab laid off roughly 350 workers, about 14% of its staff, to fund AI infrastructure investment and respond to surging traffic from AI workflows. CEO Bill Staples said agentic workloads are “pushing competitors to the brink” and described a “generational rebuild” of GitLab’s core infrastructure.
Intuit announced plans to eliminate roughly 3,000 jobs, about 17% of its total workforce, in a restructuring focused on reducing complexity and reallocating resources toward AI. Cisco, meanwhile, announced nearly 4,000 job cuts, about 5% of its workforce, while CFO Mark Patterson said: “This was really not a savings-driven restructure… this is more [about] realigning … resources around silicon, optics, security and AI.”
Efficiency, layers, and new team structures
Many of the 2026 AI layoffs are also being presented as organizational simplification. Coinbase said it was cutting about 700 employees, or 14% of its staff, while flattening its structure to five layers below the CEO and COO. The company also said it would experiment with “one-person teams” that combine engineering, design, and product roles.
PayPal announced plans to cut around 20% of its workforce over the next two to three years, amounting to north of 4,500 jobs. CEO Enrique Lores told investors the company would “aggressively adopt AI” in development processes and created an “AI transformation and simplification” team reporting directly to him.
Snap cut roughly 16% of its global workforce, about 1,000 full-time employees, and closed more than 300 open roles. CEO Evan Spiegel wrote that “Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence enable our teams to reduce repetitive work, increase velocity, and better support our community, partners, and advertisers.”
Atlassian cut about 1,600 jobs, or 10% of its workforce, to “rebalance” toward AI and enterprise sales. CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes put the tradeoff plainly: “Our approach is not ‘AI replaces people.’ But it would be disingenuous to pretend AI doesn’t change the mix of skills we need or the number of roles required in certain areas. It does.”
The market is not fully convinced
The employer story is that AI can support leaner teams, faster execution, and new growth priorities. But investors have not rewarded every company for making that case.
The Financial Times found that companies citing AI as a factor in job cuts have underperformed the Nasdaq by almost 10% in the 30 trading days following their announcements. That suggests the market may be skeptical when layoffs are framed as AI strategy rather than conventional cost control or restructuring.
The clearest takeaway is that AI is changing the language and logic of tech layoffs in 2026. Companies are not describing every cut as direct replacement. They are describing changed workflows, different skill needs, flatter structures, and heavy investment in AI infrastructure.
For workers, that means the risk is not limited to roles that can be obviously automated. The broader shift is about how companies decide which teams, layers, and functions fit an AI-first operating model.