On Monday, Microsoft announced it has cut approximately 4,800 positions, representing 2.1% of its global staff, contributing to the wave of AI-driven layoffs impacting the tech sector. The company stated that the positions being eliminated are “not being replaced by AI,” while also admitting that “AI is altering work processes” and automating numerous daily tasks.

These reductions are part of what many in the tech industry perceive as a crisis: firms reporting record earnings while simultaneously downsizing their workforces, indicating AI as both the catalyst for growth and the justification for these cuts. According to outplacement company Challenger, Gray & Christmas, tech layoffs reached their highest monthly count in years in May, with AI cited as the leading cause. In 2026, almost 120,000 tech jobs have been eliminated, based on data from Layoffs.fyi, a tracker monitoring layoffs in the industry since 2020.

We recently discussed why this reasoning could be something companies should reconsider, particularly since many of the teams they’re now reducing expanded significantly during the pandemic hiring boom, prompting inquiries about the current situation. Below is a chronological overview — in reverse order — of major tech firms that have reported significant layoffs this year attributing them to AI.

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Oracle — June 22, 2026. Oracle revealed at the end of June that it had cut its workforce by 21,000 employees over the past year, a decrease of 13%, indicating greater reductions than previously acknowledged, including those related to AI. “The integration and utilization of AI technologies in our operations have led, and may continue to lead, to workforce reductions,” the firm stated in an annual regulatory financial report.

GitLab — June 3, 2026. GitLab laid off around 350 employees, approximately 14% of its personnel, to invest in AI infrastructure and manage increased traffic from AI workflows. CEO Bill Staples mentioned that agentic workloads are “driving competitors to their limits” and that the company has embarked on a “generational rebuild” of its core infrastructure to meet what he described as 100x growth demands. GitLab is withdrawing from 22 countries, streamlining management structures, and collaborating with an unnamed AI lab to enhance its platform for large-scale workloads. The company reported first-quarter earnings of $264 million, a 23% increase year-over-year, and anticipates restructuring costs between $30 and $35 million.

Google — ongoing through May. Alphabet’s Google has subtly reduced staff within its Cloud division, including members of its Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant-related cybersecurity personnel, despite a 63% growth in Cloud revenue, surpassing $20 billion for the first time, and nearly doubling its backlog to over $460 billion. Over the past year, Google has cut more than a third of the managers supervising small teams — a 35% reduction in managers with fewer direct reports. Unlike the majority of firms on this list, Google has not disclosed a specific overall number of layoffs — cuts have been made through an ongoing performance review process, a voluntary buyout scheme, and organizational changes, with external estimates placing the 2026 total at between 1,500 and over 3,000 engineers.

Intuit — May 20, 2026. Intuit declared intentions to eliminate around 3,000 jobs — about 17% of its entire workforce — during a restructuring focused on reducing complexity and reallocating resources towards AI. CEO Sasan Goodarzi reportedly communicated to staff that the company aims to simplify its structure to enhance product delivery.

Meta — May 20-21, 2026. Meta terminated approximately 8,000 workers, about 10% of its total staff, while reallocating around 7,000 employees into new AI-centered roles (which they reportedly dislike). CEO Mark Zuckerberg informed teams that the layoffs were essential because “success isn’t guaranteed” in AI.

Cisco — May 14, 2026. Cisco announced plans to eliminate nearly 4,000 jobs, equivalent to about 5% of its workforce, even while posting better-than-anticipated profit and revenue figures. CFO Mark Patterson stated: “This wasn’t purely a savings-driven restructuring… it’s more [about] realigning … resources related to silicon, optics, security, and AI.”

Cloudflare — May 7-8, 2026. Cloudflare reduced about 20% of its workforce (1,100 individuals), reporting quarterly earnings of $639.8 million, a 34% increase year-over-year, marking the highest quarter in the company’s history. CEO Matthew Prince indicated that “the vast majority of those we laid off last week were measures” — middle management, finance, legal, internal auditing, and revenue recognition.

General Motors — May 12, 2026. GM cut between 500 and 600 jobs, primarily in IT positions located in Austin, Texas, and Warren, Michigan, citing a reevaluation of workforce needs amidst unpredictable market conditions. A source familiar with the layoffs informed CNBC that AI influenced the decision, though it wasn’t the sole factor. GM’s comment stated that it is “transforming its Information Technology structure to better prepare the company for the future.” Despite the reductions, the company still has roughly 80 IT roles open, including positions in AI, motorsports, and autonomous vehicle development.

Coinbase — May 5, 2026. The cryptocurrency platform announced it is laying off about 700 staff, or 14% of its workforce, as part of a restructuring focused on addressing market fluctuations and enhancing AI efficiency. The organization has streamlined its structure to five layers below the CEO and COO, and stated it would experiment with “one-person teams” uniting engineering, design, and product functions. CEO Brian Armstrong wrote that AI has significantly accelerated work — “engineers utilize AI to accomplish in days what formerly took a team weeks” — and emphasized the necessity to “integrate AI into every aspect of our roles.”

PayPal — May 5, 2026. PayPal revealed plans to cut approximately 20% of its workforce over the next two to three years — exceeding 4,500 jobs — as part of a turnaround strategy focused on the adoption of AI and simplifying the organization. CEO Enrique Lores told investors the company would “vigorously incorporate AI” in its development procedures and established a new “AI transformation and simplification” team directly reporting to him, charged with redesigning the company’s processes “function by function.” Lores characterized the layoffs as a reduction of organizational layers and noted that AI will extend beyond coding to customer service, support operations, and risk management.

Microsoft — April-May 2026. Microsoft provided voluntary buyouts without revealing how many employees would be affected. CFO Amy Hood mentioned that the overall headcount decreased year-over-year in fiscal Q3, and anticipates continuing to decline as the firm emphasizes “creating high-performing teams that work with speed and agility” amid increasing AI investments.

Snap — April 16, 2026. Snap eliminated around 16% of its global workforce — close to 1,000 full-time employees — and shut down over 300 open positions, with CEO Evan Spiegel attributing advancements in AI as a significant factor. “Accelerated progress in artificial intelligence enables our teams to diminish repetitive tasks, enhance speed, and better serve our community, partners, and advertisers,” Spiegel stated in a memo filed with the SEC. The company noted it has already observed small teams utilizing AI tools to foster progress across Snapchat+, advertisement platform performance, and operational efficiency.

IBM — ongoing through 2026. Cuts in Q4 2025 and April 2026 Red Hat engineering reductions yield estimates of 3,000 to 9,000 U.S. positions eliminated, raising IBM’s cumulative total since September 2024 above 15,000. Bloomberg reported IBM intends to triple its U.S. entry-level hiring for AI and hybrid-cloud positions, even as around 200 HR positions were supplanted by AI agents. An IBM representative described the Q4 2025 layoffs as a regular rebalancing impacting “a low single-digit percentage” of its global staff.

Atlassian — March 11, 2026. Atlassian reduced approximately 1,600 jobs (10% of its workforce) to “rebalance” towards AI and enterprise sales, even as shares rose nearly 2% following the announcement. CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes stated: “Our approach is not ‘AI replaces people.’ However, it would be misleading to pretend AI does not alter the skill mix we require or the number of roles necessary in specific fields. It does.”

Dell — January 30 (disclosed in March 2026). Dell’s total workforce decreased by about 10% in fiscal 2026 — around 11,000 jobs — down to approximately 97,000 employees from 108,000 a year prior, with $569 million allocated for severance. The reductions occurred as Dell predicted its AI-optimized server revenue could double in fiscal 2027.

Oracle — March 5-31, 2026. As mentioned before, Oracle started informing workers of impending job cuts through terminal emails. These cuts were announced despite Oracle reporting $3.7 billion in quarterly net income, a 27% year-over-year increase, with remaining performance obligations rising 325% to $553 billion — savings redirected towards AI data centers. The total cuts would later reach 21,000 over the course of 12 months, which Oracle disclosed in its June 22 annual report.

Block — February 26-27, 2026. Jack Dorsey’s Block eliminated 4,000 jobs — nearly half its workforce, reducing numbers to under 6,000 from over 10,000. Dorsey posted on X: “We are already witnessing that the intelligence tools we are developing and using, combined with smaller and flatter teams, are creating a new approach to work that fundamentally transforms what it means to build and operate a company.” He added: “I believe most companies are behind the curve. Within the next year, I predict that the majority will reach the same realization and implement similar organizational changes.”

Salesforce — February 10, 2026. Salesforce laid off fewer than 1,000 staff across marketing, product management, data analysis, and its Agentforce AI division. The firm informed Fortune, “Thanks to the advantages and efficiencies of Agentforce, we’ve observed a decline in the support cases we handle, and we no longer need to actively replace support engineer roles.” This was preceded by an earlier cut of about 4,000 customer-support positions, reducing the team from roughly 9,000 to 5,000, with CEO Marc Benioff stating that the firm required “fewer individuals” since AI agents manage the workload.

Amazon — January 28, 2026. Amazon eliminated 16,000 corporate roles, following 14,000 cuts in October 2025 — around 9% of its corporate workforce in just three months. The company indicated this was part of “strengthen[ing] our organization by minimizing layers, enhancing ownership, and removing bureaucracy.” CEO Andy Jassy remarked in June 2025 that, “As we introduce more generative AI and agents, it should alter the way we carry out our work. We will require fewer people to perform some of the tasks currently being done… over the next few years, we anticipate this will decrease our total corporate workforce as we achieve efficiency gains from thorough AI usage across the organization.”