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The He-Man Transformation in ‘Masters of the Universe’ Gave Us Chills
                Now, I wasn’t expecting that. I was sitting in a theater watching a 20-minute series of clips from the upcoming Masters of the Universe movie. Prince Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) has returned to Eternia, and he finds himself facing off with Trap-Jaw (Sam C. Wilson). Adam is trying to use some of the skills he learned back on Earth to mediate the tense situation, but the villain isn’t having any of it. He starts to beat the crap out of him when Teela (Camila Mendes) screams, “Use the sword!”  Yup. It was about to happen. The ultimate Masters of the Universe moment. A moment that, if handled incorrectly, could put a damper on everything around it. Adam touches the sword strapped to his back, and the second he touches it, he has a vision. It’s the Sorceress, played by Morena Baccarin. “Say the phrase,” the vision says to him, floating in the sky. Adam wasn’t expecting to see that and is a little shook by it. The vision returns. “By the power of Grayskull…” she says, trying to help.

 And so Adam pulls out the sword and points it to the sky. “By the power of Grayskull,” he begins as the clouds above start to swirl. Lightning begins to crackle. It’s about to happen. “I have the power,” he then screams. Adam rises into the air. His clothes disappear, and his muscles start to build. Armor forms around him as the camera circles around in slow motion. Finally, he comes back to the ground, forever changed. He’s He-Man. And, right then, we get a POV shot of Adam looking at his abs. Yup. He’s changed, all right. There’s more to the scene too, including a ton of action, but director Travis Knight handles the moment with absolute sincerity. He pushes it to the very edge of plausibility and fantasy and then acknowledges it for just a second. He knows this is wild. He knows it’s silly. But also, he doesn’t care. This is a freaking He-Man movie, and even though I’ve always been more of a tangential He-Man fan, watching this scene gave me chills. It’s that good.

 That tone is apparent throughout the rest of the footage screened at the CinemaCon adjacent event, too. We saw Skeletor’s armies storming Eternos as King Randor, Queen Marlena, Prince Adam, and—yes—even Princess Adora try to escape. Ram-Man, Fisto, and Mekaneck are among the heroes fighting for them. Man at Arms (Idris Elba) promises to help the royals escape, kicking all sorts of ass on the way to the exit. That is, until he finds himself opposite Lock-Jaw and loses.

 In this version of Masters of the Universe, the film begins with Skeletor (Jared Leto) actually winning. That’s why Prince Adam is sent away to Earth, to keep him safe. We even saw Skeletor’s speech to King Randor as the rest of the family escapes. He’s evil and weird, and it ends with a very awkward moment that feels perfectly Skeletor. Basically, the footage was a very encouraging tease that Knight has found the balance to acknowledge the inherent weirdness of He-Man, with all the crazy creatures, rules, magic, muscles, and more, while also taking it seriously enough to make you feel for the characters. We can’t wait to see the rest. Masters of the Universe opens on June 5.  Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.      #HeMan #Transformation #Masters #Universe #Gave #ChillsCinemaCon,Masters of the Universe,Travis Knight

The He-Man Transformation in ‘Masters of the Universe’ Gave Us Chills

Now, I wasn’t expecting that. I was sitting in a theater watching a 20-minute series of clips from the upcoming Masters of the Universe movie. Prince Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) has returned to Eternia, and he finds himself facing off with Trap-Jaw (Sam C. Wilson). Adam is trying to use some of the skills he learned back on Earth to mediate the tense situation, but the villain isn’t having any of it. He starts to beat the crap out of him when Teela (Camila Mendes) screams, “Use the sword!”

The He-Man Transformation in ‘Masters of the Universe’ Gave Us Chills
                Now, I wasn’t expecting that. I was sitting in a theater watching a 20-minute series of clips from the upcoming Masters of the Universe movie. Prince Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) has returned to Eternia, and he finds himself facing off with Trap-Jaw (Sam C. Wilson). Adam is trying to use some of the skills he learned back on Earth to mediate the tense situation, but the villain isn’t having any of it. He starts to beat the crap out of him when Teela (Camila Mendes) screams, “Use the sword!”  Yup. It was about to happen. The ultimate Masters of the Universe moment. A moment that, if handled incorrectly, could put a damper on everything around it. Adam touches the sword strapped to his back, and the second he touches it, he has a vision. It’s the Sorceress, played by Morena Baccarin. “Say the phrase,” the vision says to him, floating in the sky. Adam wasn’t expecting to see that and is a little shook by it. The vision returns. “By the power of Grayskull…” she says, trying to help.

 And so Adam pulls out the sword and points it to the sky. “By the power of Grayskull,” he begins as the clouds above start to swirl. Lightning begins to crackle. It’s about to happen. “I have the power,” he then screams. Adam rises into the air. His clothes disappear, and his muscles start to build. Armor forms around him as the camera circles around in slow motion. Finally, he comes back to the ground, forever changed. He’s He-Man. And, right then, we get a POV shot of Adam looking at his abs. Yup. He’s changed, all right. There’s more to the scene too, including a ton of action, but director Travis Knight handles the moment with absolute sincerity. He pushes it to the very edge of plausibility and fantasy and then acknowledges it for just a second. He knows this is wild. He knows it’s silly. But also, he doesn’t care. This is a freaking He-Man movie, and even though I’ve always been more of a tangential He-Man fan, watching this scene gave me chills. It’s that good.

 That tone is apparent throughout the rest of the footage screened at the CinemaCon adjacent event, too. We saw Skeletor’s armies storming Eternos as King Randor, Queen Marlena, Prince Adam, and—yes—even Princess Adora try to escape. Ram-Man, Fisto, and Mekaneck are among the heroes fighting for them. Man at Arms (Idris Elba) promises to help the royals escape, kicking all sorts of ass on the way to the exit. That is, until he finds himself opposite Lock-Jaw and loses.

 In this version of Masters of the Universe, the film begins with Skeletor (Jared Leto) actually winning. That’s why Prince Adam is sent away to Earth, to keep him safe. We even saw Skeletor’s speech to King Randor as the rest of the family escapes. He’s evil and weird, and it ends with a very awkward moment that feels perfectly Skeletor. Basically, the footage was a very encouraging tease that Knight has found the balance to acknowledge the inherent weirdness of He-Man, with all the crazy creatures, rules, magic, muscles, and more, while also taking it seriously enough to make you feel for the characters. We can’t wait to see the rest. Masters of the Universe opens on June 5.  Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.      #HeMan #Transformation #Masters #Universe #Gave #ChillsCinemaCon,Masters of the Universe,Travis Knight

Yup. It was about to happen. The ultimate Masters of the Universe moment. A moment that, if handled incorrectly, could put a damper on everything around it. Adam touches the sword strapped to his back, and the second he touches it, he has a vision. It’s the Sorceress, played by Morena Baccarin. “Say the phrase,” the vision says to him, floating in the sky. Adam wasn’t expecting to see that and is a little shook by it. The vision returns. “By the power of Grayskull…” she says, trying to help.

And so Adam pulls out the sword and points it to the sky. “By the power of Grayskull,” he begins as the clouds above start to swirl. Lightning begins to crackle. It’s about to happen. “I have the power,” he then screams. Adam rises into the air. His clothes disappear, and his muscles start to build. Armor forms around him as the camera circles around in slow motion. Finally, he comes back to the ground, forever changed. He’s He-Man. And, right then, we get a POV shot of Adam looking at his abs. Yup. He’s changed, all right.

There’s more to the scene too, including a ton of action, but director Travis Knight handles the moment with absolute sincerity. He pushes it to the very edge of plausibility and fantasy and then acknowledges it for just a second. He knows this is wild. He knows it’s silly. But also, he doesn’t care. This is a freaking He-Man movie, and even though I’ve always been more of a tangential He-Man fan, watching this scene gave me chills. It’s that good.

That tone is apparent throughout the rest of the footage screened at the CinemaCon adjacent event, too. We saw Skeletor’s armies storming Eternos as King Randor, Queen Marlena, Prince Adam, and—yes—even Princess Adora try to escape. Ram-Man, Fisto, and Mekaneck are among the heroes fighting for them. Man at Arms (Idris Elba) promises to help the royals escape, kicking all sorts of ass on the way to the exit. That is, until he finds himself opposite Lock-Jaw and loses.

In this version of Masters of the Universe, the film begins with Skeletor (Jared Leto) actually winning. That’s why Prince Adam is sent away to Earth, to keep him safe. We even saw Skeletor’s speech to King Randor as the rest of the family escapes. He’s evil and weird, and it ends with a very awkward moment that feels perfectly Skeletor.

Basically, the footage was a very encouraging tease that Knight has found the balance to acknowledge the inherent weirdness of He-Man, with all the crazy creatures, rules, magic, muscles, and more, while also taking it seriously enough to make you feel for the characters. We can’t wait to see the rest.

Masters of the Universe opens on June 5.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

#HeMan #Transformation #Masters #Universe #Gave #ChillsCinemaCon,Masters of the Universe,Travis Knight

Now, I wasn’t expecting that. I was sitting in a theater watching a 20-minute series of clips from the upcoming Masters of the Universe movie. Prince Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) has returned to Eternia, and he finds himself facing off with Trap-Jaw (Sam C. Wilson). Adam is trying to use some of the skills he learned back on Earth to mediate the tense situation, but the villain isn’t having any of it. He starts to beat the crap out of him when Teela (Camila Mendes) screams, “Use the sword!”

Yup. It was about to happen. The ultimate Masters of the Universe moment. A moment that, if handled incorrectly, could put a damper on everything around it. Adam touches the sword strapped to his back, and the second he touches it, he has a vision. It’s the Sorceress, played by Morena Baccarin. “Say the phrase,” the vision says to him, floating in the sky. Adam wasn’t expecting to see that and is a little shook by it. The vision returns. “By the power of Grayskull…” she says, trying to help.

And so Adam pulls out the sword and points it to the sky. “By the power of Grayskull,” he begins as the clouds above start to swirl. Lightning begins to crackle. It’s about to happen. “I have the power,” he then screams. Adam rises into the air. His clothes disappear, and his muscles start to build. Armor forms around him as the camera circles around in slow motion. Finally, he comes back to the ground, forever changed. He’s He-Man. And, right then, we get a POV shot of Adam looking at his abs. Yup. He’s changed, all right.

There’s more to the scene too, including a ton of action, but director Travis Knight handles the moment with absolute sincerity. He pushes it to the very edge of plausibility and fantasy and then acknowledges it for just a second. He knows this is wild. He knows it’s silly. But also, he doesn’t care. This is a freaking He-Man movie, and even though I’ve always been more of a tangential He-Man fan, watching this scene gave me chills. It’s that good.

That tone is apparent throughout the rest of the footage screened at the CinemaCon adjacent event, too. We saw Skeletor’s armies storming Eternos as King Randor, Queen Marlena, Prince Adam, and—yes—even Princess Adora try to escape. Ram-Man, Fisto, and Mekaneck are among the heroes fighting for them. Man at Arms (Idris Elba) promises to help the royals escape, kicking all sorts of ass on the way to the exit. That is, until he finds himself opposite Lock-Jaw and loses.

In this version of Masters of the Universe, the film begins with Skeletor (Jared Leto) actually winning. That’s why Prince Adam is sent away to Earth, to keep him safe. We even saw Skeletor’s speech to King Randor as the rest of the family escapes. He’s evil and weird, and it ends with a very awkward moment that feels perfectly Skeletor.

Basically, the footage was a very encouraging tease that Knight has found the balance to acknowledge the inherent weirdness of He-Man, with all the crazy creatures, rules, magic, muscles, and more, while also taking it seriously enough to make you feel for the characters. We can’t wait to see the rest.

Masters of the Universe opens on June 5.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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Deadspin | Jose Caballero, Yankees walk-off Angels for 2nd time in series <div id=""><section id="0" class=" w-full"><div class="xl:container mx-0 !px-4 py-0 pb-4 !mx-0 !px-0"><img src="https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/28738160.jpg" srcset="https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/28738160.jpg" alt="MLB: Los Angeles Angels at New York Yankees" class="w-full" fetchpriority="high" loading="eager"/><span class="text-0.8 leading-tight">Apr 15, 2026; Bronx, New York, USA; New York Yankees shortstop Jose Caballero reacts after being doused by right fielder Aaron Judge after his ninth inning two run walkoff hit against the Los Angeles Angels at Yankee Stadium. All MLB players are wearing number 42 today to honor Jackie Robinson. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-Imagn Images<!-- --> <!-- --> </span></div></section><section id="section-1"> <p>Jose Caballero hit a game-ending two-run double with one out in the ninth inning off Jordan Romano, and the New York Yankees earned a 5-4 victory over the visiting Los Angeles Angels on Wednesday night.</p> </section><section id="section-2"> <p>The Yankees had runners on first and second after Jazz Chisholm Jr. reached on an infield single when his pop up fell between Zach Neto and third baseman Oswald Peraza. After Chisholm stole second, Wells worked out a full-count walk.</p> </section><section id="section-3"> <p>Caballero followed by lining a 1-2 slider from Romano (0-2) to center field to easily score Chisholm. Mike Trout fielded the ball and made a relay throw to shortstop Zach Neto. Wells scored from first base, as the throw was to the first base side of the plate.</p> </section><section id="section-4"> <p>Wells slid in ahead of the throw and just avoided the tag of catcher Logan O’Hoppe. His run was upheld after the Angels challenged the call by plate umpire Lance Barksdale.</p> </section><section id="section-5"> <p>Caballero factored in New York’s second walk-off in three nights. On Monday he scored the game-winning run in the ninth on Romano’s wild pitch to give the Yankees an 11-10 win.</p> </section><section id="section-6"> <p>The Yankees won for the second time in eight games after losing an early three-run lead.</p> </section><br/><section id="section-7"> <p>Trout hit a two-run homer with one out in the fifth off Luis Gil to give the Yankees a 4-3 lead. O’Hoppe started the fifth with a homer, and Adam Frazier homered in the third off Gil.</p> </section> <section id="section-8"> <p>Trout became the first visiting player to homer in three straight days at Yankee Stadium since Miguel Cabrera Aug. 9-11, 2013, for the Detroit Tigers.</p> </section><section id="section-9"> <p>Los Angeles starter Jack Kochanowicz allowed three runs on four hits in 6 2/3 innings.</p> </section><section id="section-10"> <p>Aaron Judge homered for the fourth time in as many games hitting a 1-2 sinker to right field in the first inning. Trent Grisham hit a two-run single in the second when five of New York’s first 10 hitters reached base.</p> </section><section id="section-11"> <p>Gil allowed four runs on five hits in five innings. The right-hander struck out five and walked two.</p> </section><section id="section-12"> <p>Four relievers followed Gil with four scoreless innings and David Bednar (1-2) pitched the ninth to set up the rally.</p> </section><section id="section-13"> <p>–Field Level Media</p> </section></div> #Deadspin #Jose #Caballero #Yankees #walkoff #Angels #2nd #time #series

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The long road back: Kartik Tyagi opens up on how he overcame injury troubles <div id="content-body-70869762" itemprop="articleBody"><p>For Kartik Tyagi, the road back has been as much about introspection as it has been about pace.</p><p>On the eve of Kolkata Knight Riders’ clash against Gujarat Titans at the Narendra Modi Stadium, the young quick — one of the few bright spots in an otherwise underwhelming IPL 2026 campaign for his team — opened up on the tweaks that have helped him rediscover rhythm after a frustrating run with injuries.</p><p>A recurring shin splint had stalled Tyagi’s progress just when he seemed to be finding his feet at the top level. The enforced breaks, though, turned into a period of reflection.</p><p>“There were a few injuries… but at the same time, I identified that there were a few problems. There were a few incidents… the same thing kept repeating,” Tyagi said.</p><p><b>ALSO READ | <a href="https://sportstar.thehindu.com/cricket/ipl/gujarat-titans-vs-kolkata-knight-riders-ipl-2026-match-preview-gt-v-kkr/article70869630.ece" target="_blank">Gujarat Titans eyes hat-trick of wins as winless Kolkata Knight Riders visits</a></b></p><p>The solution lay in going back to the drawing board. Tyagi reworked his run-up — particularly his loading phase — and made subtle adjustments to his action, in consultation with physios and coaches.</p><p>The changes, he believes, have reduced the stress on his body while allowing him to retain his natural pace.</p><p>“I had to change everything… a lot of people have said about the action, but I know that the same thing was happening again and again,” he said.</p><div class="inline_embed article-block-item"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Timber Strike! \|/</p><p>🎥 Talk about that for a comeback from Kartik Tyagi 🔥</p><p>Updates ▶️ <a href="https://t.co/jWkXVCPxj5">https://t.co/jWkXVCPxj5</a><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TATAIPL?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TATAIPL</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/KhelBindaas?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#KhelBindaas</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CSKvKKR?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CSKvKKR</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/KKRiders?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@KKRiders</a><a href="https://t.co/eNcafwzEhU">pic.twitter.com/eNcafwzEhU</a></p>— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) <a href="https://twitter.com/IPL/status/2044068361601200150?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 14, 2026</a></blockquote></div><p>The results are evident. Tyagi is back touching the high 140s with consistency, but more importantly, with control — a combination that has added bite to an otherwise struggling KKR attack.</p><p>“Mentally, there’s no difference for me… there’s always pressure… we should try to understand the process,” he said, emphasising clarity over clutter.</p><p class="publish-time" id="end-of-article">Published on Apr 16, 2026</p></div><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> #long #road #Kartik #Tyagi #opens #overcame #injury #troubles

Monday.com, the Tel Aviv-based work management software company known for its colorful, customizable project-tracking boards, this week became the latest tech company to cite AI as a factor in job cuts. On Wednesday, the company said in an SEC filing that it will lay off about 20% of its workforce, or just over 600 employees, as part of a “restructuring plan” tied to its “ongoing transformation of its product, marketing, and go-to-market strategy” in support of “a leaner, more focused operating model” as it continues investing in its “AI-driven growth strategy.”

Co-founder Eran Zinman told employees in a LinkedIn memo that the move “was not made to reduce costs or replace people with AI,” positioning it instead as adapting the organization to a new AI-first vision the company laid out roughly a year ago when it rebranded around a platform-wide AI push. Monday.com, which has two offices in the U.S., expects $45 million to $55 million in net restructuring charges but still projects up to 20% year-over-year revenue growth for 2026.

So far, according to new Financial Times analysis, U.S. tech companies have slashed nearly 140,000 jobs since the start of this year, with Amazon, Oracle, Meta, and Microsoft alone accounting for almost 50,000 of those cuts as they funnel hundreds of billions of dollars into AI data center buildouts. Interestingly, the FT also 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, suggesting the market doesn’t entirely buy the stories that the companies are telling.

Still, the picture isn’t uniformly bleak. The FT notes that AI-focused companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are hiring rapidly, absorbing some of the talent shed elsewhere in the industry. And within some of the very companies making cuts, headcount is shifting rather than disappearing entirely. Meta, for instance, earlier this year moved roughly 7,000 employees into new AI-focused roles even as it laid off 8,000 others, and IBM says it’s tripling entry-level hiring for AI and hybrid-cloud roles alongside recent cuts.

Below is a running look — in reverse chronological order — at the bigger tech companies that have announced significant layoffs this year with AI as a stated factor.



Microsoft — July 9, 2026. Microsoft cut about 4,800 roles, or 2.1% of its global workforce, most of them in its Xbox gaming unit, resetting the business only three years after acquiring Activision Blizzard for $75 billion, per the FT. Separately, it offered buyouts structured as voluntary separations, without disclosing how many employees these would impact. The company said the role eliminations were “not being replaced by AI” but acknowledged “AI is changing how work gets done.” CFO Amy Hood said total headcount declined year-over-year in fiscal Q3, and was expected to keep declining as the company focuses on “building high-performing teams that operate with pace and agility” amid rising AI investment.

Oracle — June 22, 2026. Oracle disclosed in late June that it had reduced its workforce by 21,000 employees over the past 12 months, a decline of 13%, which means more cuts than was previously known, including because of AI. “The adoption and deployment of AI technologies across our operations have resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce,” the company said in an annual financial regulatory filing.

GitLab — June 3, 2026. GitLab laid off roughly 350 workers, about 14% of its staff, to fund AI infrastructure investment and handle surging traffic from AI workflows. CEO Bill Staples said agentic workloads are “pushing competitors to the brink” and that the company had begun a “generational rebuild” of its core infrastructure to support what he called 100x growth requirements. GitLab is exiting 22 countries, flattening management layers, and partnering with an unspecified AI lab to rebuild its platform for agent-scale workloads. The company reported first-quarter revenue of $264 million, up 23% year-over-year, and expects to incur $30 to $35 million in restructuring costs.

Google — ongoing through May. Alphabet’s Google has quietly cut employees across its Cloud division, including its Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant-linked cybersecurity staff, even as Cloud revenue grew 63% to exceed $20 billion for the first time and its backlog nearly doubled to over $460 billion. Over the past year, Google has cut more than a third of the managers overseeing small teams — 35% fewer managers with fewer direct reports. Unlike most companies on this list, Google has never announced a single overall number — the cuts have come through a rolling performance review process, a voluntary buyout program, and structural reorganizations, with outside estimates putting the 2026 total at between 1,500 and 3,000+ engineers.

Intuit — May 20, 2026. Intuit announced plans to eliminate roughly 3,000 jobs — about 17% of its total workforce — in a restructuring centered on reducing complexity and reallocating resources toward AI. CEO Sasan Goodarzi reportedly told staff the company is reducing complexity and simplifying the structure so it can deliver better products.

Meta — May 20-21, 2026. Meta laid off about 8,000 employees, roughly 10% of its workforce, while moving about 7,000 employees into new AI-focused roles (that they reportedly hate). CEO Mark Zuckerberg told staff the cuts were necessary because “success isn’t a given” in AI.

Cisco — May 14, 2026. Cisco announced it’s cutting nearly 4,000 jobs, about 5% of its workforce, despite reporting better-than-expected profit and revenue. CFO Mark Patterson said: “This was really not a savings-driven restructure… this is more [about] realigning … resources around silicon, optics, security and AI.”

Cloudflare — May 7-8, 2026. Cloudflare cut about 20% of its workforce (1,100 people), reporting quarterly revenue of $639.8 million, up 34% year-over-year and the highest single quarter in company history. CEO Matthew Prince wrote that “the vast majority of those we laid off last week were measurers” — middle management, finance, legal, internal auditing, and revenue recognition.

General Motors — May 12, 2026. GM eliminated 500 to 600 jobs, largely in IT roles in Austin, Texas, and Warren, Michigan, saying it was reevaluating its workforce needs amid uncertain market conditions. A person familiar with the cuts told CNBC that AI played a role in the decision but that it wasn’t the only reason. GM’s statement said it was “transforming its Information Technology organization to better position the company for the future.” Despite the cuts, the company still had roughly 80 open IT positions, including roles in AI, motorsports, and autonomous vehicles.

Coinbase — May 5, 2026. The crypto exchange said it was cutting about 700 employees, or 14% of its staff, as part of a restructuring aimed at addressing market volatility and increasing AI efficiency. The company flattened its organizational structure to five layers below the CEO and COO, and said it would experiment with “one-person teams” combining engineering, design, and product roles. CEO Brian Armstrong wrote that AI had changed the pace of work dramatically — “engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks” — and that the company needed to “leverage AI across every facet of our jobs.”

PayPal — May 5, 2026. PayPal announced plans to cut around 20% of its workforce over the next two to three years — north of 4,500 jobs — as part of a turnaround strategy centered on AI adoption and organizational simplification. CEO Enrique Lores told investors the company would “aggressively adopt AI” in its development processes and formed a new “AI transformation and simplification” team reporting directly to him, tasked with redesigning the company’s processes “function by function.” Lores framed the cuts as removing organizational layers, and said AI would extend well beyond coding into customer service, support operations, and risk management.

Microsoft — April-May 2026. Microsoft offered buyouts structured as voluntary separations, without disclosing how many employees these would impact. CFO Amy Hood said total headcount declined year-over-year in fiscal Q3, and is expected to keep declining as the company focuses on “building high-performing teams that operate with pace and agility” amid rising AI investment.

Snap — April 16, 2026. Snap cut roughly 16% of its global workforce — about 1,000 full-time employees — and closed more than 300 open roles, with CEO Evan Spiegel citing AI advancements as a key driver. “Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence enable our teams to reduce repetitive work, increase velocity, and better support our community, partners, and advertisers,” Spiegel wrote in a memo filed with the SEC. The company said it had already seen small squads using AI tools to drive progress across Snapchat+, ad platform performance, and infrastructure efficiency.

IBM — rolling through 2026. Between Q4 2025 cuts and April 2026 Red Hat engineering reductions, estimates range from 3,000 to 9,000 U.S. positions eliminated, bringing IBM’s cumulative total since September 2024 above 15,000. Bloomberg reported IBM plans to triple its U.S. entry-level hiring for AI and hybrid-cloud roles, even as roughly 200 HR positions were replaced by AI agents. An IBM spokesperson described the Q4 2025 round as a routine rebalancing affecting “a low single-digit percentage” of its global workforce.

Atlassian — March 11, 2026. Atlassian cut about 1,600 jobs (10% of its workforce) to “rebalance” toward AI and enterprise sales, even as shares rose nearly 2% on the news. CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes said: “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.”

Dell — January 30 (though disclosed in March 2026). Dell’s total workforce fell about 10% in fiscal 2026 — roughly 11,000 jobs — to about 97,000 employees from 108,000 a year earlier, with $569 million spent on severance. The cuts came as Dell projected its AI-optimized server revenue could double in fiscal 2027.

Oracle — March 5-31, 2026. As noted above, Oracle began telling employees it would be cutting thousands of jobs via terminal emails. The cuts came even as Oracle posted $3.7 billion in quarterly net income, up 27% year-over-year, with remaining performance obligations up 325% to $553 billion — savings redirected toward AI data centers. The cuts that would later total 21,000 over 12 months, as Oracle disclosed in its June 22 annual filing.

Block — February 26-27, 2026. Jack Dorsey’s Block cut 4,000 jobs — nearly half its workforce, down to under 6,000 from over 10,000. Dorsey wrote on X: “We’re already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company.” He added: “I think most companies are late. Within the next year, I believe the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes.”

Salesforce — February 10, 2026. Salesforce laid off fewer than 1,000 employees across marketing, product management, data analytics, and its Agentforce AI unit. The company told Fortune, “Because of the benefits and efficiencies of Agentforce, we’ve seen the number of support cases we handle decline and we no longer need to actively backfill support engineer roles.” This followed an earlier cut of about 4,000 customer-support roles, shrinking that team from roughly 9,000 to 5,000, with CEO Marc Benioff saying the company needed “less heads” because AI agents handle the work.

Amazon — January 28, 2026. Amazon cut 16,000 corporate jobs, following 14,000 cuts in October 2025 — about 9% of its corporate workforce in three months. The company said it was part of “strengthen[ing] our organization by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy.” CEO Andy Jassy had said in June 2025 that, “As we roll out more generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today… in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.”

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#Monday.com #latest #tech #company #blame #layoffs #TechCrunchAI,Layoffs">Monday.com is the latest tech company to blame AI for layoffs — here are 20 others | TechCrunch
Monday.com, the Tel Aviv-based work management software company known for its colorful, customizable project-tracking boards, this week became the latest tech company to cite AI as a factor in job cuts. On Wednesday, the company said in an SEC filing that it will lay off about 20% of its workforce, or just over 600 employees, as part of a “restructuring plan” tied to its “ongoing transformation of its product, marketing, and go-to-market strategy” in support of “a leaner, more focused operating model” as it continues investing in its “AI-driven growth strategy.” 

Co-founder Eran Zinman told employees in a LinkedIn memo that the move “was not made to reduce costs or replace people with AI,” positioning it instead as adapting the organization to a new AI-first vision the company laid out roughly a year ago when it rebranded around a platform-wide AI push. Monday.com, which has two offices in the U.S., expects  million to  million in net restructuring charges but still projects up to 20% year-over-year revenue growth for 2026.







So far, according to new Financial Times analysis, U.S. tech companies have slashed nearly 140,000 jobs since the start of this year, with Amazon, Oracle, Meta, and Microsoft alone accounting for almost 50,000 of those cuts as they funnel hundreds of billions of dollars into AI data center buildouts. Interestingly, the FT also 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, suggesting the market doesn’t entirely buy the stories that the companies are telling.

Still, the picture isn’t uniformly bleak. The FT notes that AI-focused companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are hiring rapidly, absorbing some of the talent shed elsewhere in the industry. And within some of the very companies making cuts, headcount is shifting rather than disappearing entirely. Meta, for instance, earlier this year moved roughly 7,000 employees into new AI-focused roles even as it laid off 8,000 others, and IBM says it’s tripling entry-level hiring for AI and hybrid-cloud roles alongside recent cuts.

Below is a running look — in reverse chronological order — at the bigger tech companies that have announced significant layoffs this year with AI as a stated factor.



Microsoft — July 9, 2026. Microsoft cut about 4,800 roles, or 2.1% of its global workforce, most of them in its Xbox gaming unit, resetting the business only three years after acquiring Activision Blizzard for  billion, per the FT. Separately, it offered buyouts structured as voluntary separations, without disclosing how many employees these would impact. The company said the role eliminations were “not being replaced by AI” but acknowledged “AI is changing how work gets done.” CFO Amy Hood said total headcount declined year-over-year in fiscal Q3, and was expected to keep declining as the company focuses on “building high-performing teams that operate with pace and agility” amid rising AI investment.

Oracle — June 22, 2026. Oracle disclosed in late June that it had reduced its workforce by 21,000 employees over the past 12 months, a decline of 13%, which means more cuts than was previously known, including because of AI. “The adoption and deployment of AI technologies across our operations have resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce,” the company said in an annual financial regulatory filing.


GitLab — June 3, 2026. GitLab laid off roughly 350 workers, about 14% of its staff, to fund AI infrastructure investment and handle surging traffic from AI workflows. CEO Bill Staples said agentic workloads are “pushing competitors to the brink” and that the company had begun a “generational rebuild” of its core infrastructure to support what he called 100x growth requirements. GitLab is exiting 22 countries, flattening management layers, and partnering with an unspecified AI lab to rebuild its platform for agent-scale workloads. The company reported first-quarter revenue of 4 million, up 23% year-over-year, and expects to incur  to  million in restructuring costs.

Google — ongoing through May. Alphabet’s Google has quietly cut employees across its Cloud division, including its Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant-linked cybersecurity staff, even as Cloud revenue grew 63% to exceed  billion for the first time and its backlog nearly doubled to over 0 billion. Over the past year, Google has cut more than a third of the managers overseeing small teams — 35% fewer managers with fewer direct reports. Unlike most companies on this list, Google has never announced a single overall number — the cuts have come through a rolling performance review process, a voluntary buyout program, and structural reorganizations, with outside estimates putting the 2026 total at between 1,500 and 3,000+ engineers.

Intuit — May 20, 2026. Intuit announced plans to eliminate roughly 3,000 jobs — about 17% of its total workforce — in a restructuring centered on reducing complexity and reallocating resources toward AI. CEO Sasan Goodarzi reportedly told staff the company is reducing complexity and simplifying the structure so it can deliver better products.







Meta — May 20-21, 2026. Meta laid off about 8,000 employees, roughly 10% of its workforce, while moving about 7,000 employees into new AI-focused roles (that they reportedly hate). CEO Mark Zuckerberg told staff the cuts were necessary because “success isn’t a given” in AI.

Cisco — May 14, 2026. Cisco announced it’s cutting nearly 4,000 jobs, about 5% of its workforce, despite reporting better-than-expected profit and revenue. CFO Mark Patterson said: “This was really not a savings-driven restructure… this is more [about] realigning … resources around silicon, optics, security and AI.”

Cloudflare — May 7-8, 2026. Cloudflare cut about 20% of its workforce (1,100 people), reporting quarterly revenue of 9.8 million, up 34% year-over-year and the highest single quarter in company history. CEO Matthew Prince wrote that “the vast majority of those we laid off last week were measurers” — middle management, finance, legal, internal auditing, and revenue recognition.

General Motors — May 12, 2026. GM eliminated 500 to 600 jobs, largely in IT roles in Austin, Texas, and Warren, Michigan, saying it was reevaluating its workforce needs amid uncertain market conditions. A person familiar with the cuts told CNBC that AI played a role in the decision but that it wasn’t the only reason. GM’s statement said it was “transforming its Information Technology organization to better position the company for the future.” Despite the cuts, the company still had roughly 80 open IT positions, including roles in AI, motorsports, and autonomous vehicles.

Coinbase — May 5, 2026. The crypto exchange said it was cutting about 700 employees, or 14% of its staff, as part of a restructuring aimed at addressing market volatility and increasing AI efficiency. The company flattened its organizational structure to five layers below the CEO and COO, and said it would experiment with “one-person teams” combining engineering, design, and product roles. CEO Brian Armstrong wrote that AI had changed the pace of work dramatically — “engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks” — and that the company needed to “leverage AI across every facet of our jobs.” 

PayPal — May 5, 2026. PayPal announced plans to cut around 20% of its workforce over the next two to three years — north of 4,500 jobs — as part of a turnaround strategy centered on AI adoption and organizational simplification. CEO Enrique Lores told investors the company would “aggressively adopt AI” in its development processes and formed a new “AI transformation and simplification” team reporting directly to him, tasked with redesigning the company’s processes “function by function.” Lores framed the cuts as removing organizational layers, and said AI would extend well beyond coding into customer service, support operations, and risk management.Microsoft — April-May 2026. Microsoft offered buyouts structured as voluntary separations, without disclosing how many employees these would impact. CFO Amy Hood said total headcount declined year-over-year in fiscal Q3, and is expected to keep declining as the company focuses on “building high-performing teams that operate with pace and agility” amid rising AI investment.

Snap — April 16, 2026. Snap cut roughly 16% of its global workforce — about 1,000 full-time employees — and closed more than 300 open roles, with CEO Evan Spiegel citing AI advancements as a key driver. “Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence enable our teams to reduce repetitive work, increase velocity, and better support our community, partners, and advertisers,” Spiegel wrote in a memo filed with the SEC. The company said it had already seen small squads using AI tools to drive progress across Snapchat+, ad platform performance, and infrastructure efficiency.

IBM — rolling through 2026. Between Q4 2025 cuts and April 2026 Red Hat engineering reductions, estimates range from 3,000 to 9,000 U.S. positions eliminated, bringing IBM’s cumulative total since September 2024 above 15,000. Bloomberg reported IBM plans to triple its U.S. entry-level hiring for AI and hybrid-cloud roles, even as roughly 200 HR positions were replaced by AI agents. An IBM spokesperson described the Q4 2025 round as a routine rebalancing affecting “a low single-digit percentage” of its global workforce.







Atlassian — March 11, 2026. Atlassian cut about 1,600 jobs (10% of its workforce) to “rebalance” toward AI and enterprise sales, even as shares rose nearly 2% on the news. CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes said: “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.” Dell — January 30 (though disclosed in March 2026). Dell’s total workforce fell about 10% in fiscal 2026 — roughly 11,000 jobs — to about 97,000 employees from 108,000 a year earlier, with 9 million spent on severance. The cuts came as Dell projected its AI-optimized server revenue could double in fiscal 2027.

Oracle — March 5-31, 2026. As noted above, Oracle began telling employees it would be cutting thousands of jobs via terminal emails. The cuts came even as Oracle posted .7 billion in quarterly net income, up 27% year-over-year, with remaining performance obligations up 325% to 3 billion — savings redirected toward AI data centers. The cuts that would later total 21,000 over 12 months, as Oracle disclosed in its June 22 annual filing.

Block — February 26-27, 2026. Jack Dorsey’s Block cut 4,000 jobs — nearly half its workforce, down to under 6,000 from over 10,000. Dorsey wrote on X: “We’re already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company.” He added: “I think most companies are late. Within the next year, I believe the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes.” Salesforce — February 10, 2026. Salesforce laid off fewer than 1,000 employees across marketing, product management, data analytics, and its Agentforce AI unit. The company told Fortune, “Because of the benefits and efficiencies of Agentforce, we’ve seen the number of support cases we handle decline and we no longer need to actively backfill support engineer roles.” This followed an earlier cut of about 4,000 customer-support roles, shrinking that team from roughly 9,000 to 5,000, with CEO Marc Benioff saying the company needed “less heads” because AI agents handle the work. Amazon — January 28, 2026. Amazon cut 16,000 corporate jobs, following 14,000 cuts in October 2025 — about 9% of its corporate workforce in three months. The company said it was part of “strengthen[ing] our organization by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy.” CEO Andy Jassy had said in June 2025 that, “As we roll out more generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today… in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.”
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#Monday.com #latest #tech #company #blame #layoffs #TechCrunchAI,Layoffs

SEC filing that it will lay off about 20% of its workforce, or just over 600 employees, as part of a “restructuring plan” tied to its “ongoing transformation of its product, marketing, and go-to-market strategy” in support of “a leaner, more focused operating model” as it continues investing in its “AI-driven growth strategy.”

Co-founder Eran Zinman told employees in a LinkedIn memo that the move “was not made to reduce costs or replace people with AI,” positioning it instead as adapting the organization to a new AI-first vision the company laid out roughly a year ago when it rebranded around a platform-wide AI push. Monday.com, which has two offices in the U.S., expects $45 million to $55 million in net restructuring charges but still projects up to 20% year-over-year revenue growth for 2026.

So far, according to new Financial Times analysis, U.S. tech companies have slashed nearly 140,000 jobs since the start of this year, with Amazon, Oracle, Meta, and Microsoft alone accounting for almost 50,000 of those cuts as they funnel hundreds of billions of dollars into AI data center buildouts. Interestingly, the FT also 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, suggesting the market doesn’t entirely buy the stories that the companies are telling.

Still, the picture isn’t uniformly bleak. The FT notes that AI-focused companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are hiring rapidly, absorbing some of the talent shed elsewhere in the industry. And within some of the very companies making cuts, headcount is shifting rather than disappearing entirely. Meta, for instance, earlier this year moved roughly 7,000 employees into new AI-focused roles even as it laid off 8,000 others, and IBM says it’s tripling entry-level hiring for AI and hybrid-cloud roles alongside recent cuts.

Below is a running look — in reverse chronological order — at the bigger tech companies that have announced significant layoffs this year with AI as a stated factor.



Microsoft — July 9, 2026. Microsoft cut about 4,800 roles, or 2.1% of its global workforce, most of them in its Xbox gaming unit, resetting the business only three years after acquiring Activision Blizzard for $75 billion, per the FT. Separately, it offered buyouts structured as voluntary separations, without disclosing how many employees these would impact. The company said the role eliminations were “not being replaced by AI” but acknowledged “AI is changing how work gets done.” CFO Amy Hood said total headcount declined year-over-year in fiscal Q3, and was expected to keep declining as the company focuses on “building high-performing teams that operate with pace and agility” amid rising AI investment.

Oracle — June 22, 2026. Oracle disclosed in late June that it had reduced its workforce by 21,000 employees over the past 12 months, a decline of 13%, which means more cuts than was previously known, including because of AI. “The adoption and deployment of AI technologies across our operations have resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce,” the company said in an annual financial regulatory filing.

GitLab — June 3, 2026. GitLab laid off roughly 350 workers, about 14% of its staff, to fund AI infrastructure investment and handle surging traffic from AI workflows. CEO Bill Staples said agentic workloads are “pushing competitors to the brink” and that the company had begun a “generational rebuild” of its core infrastructure to support what he called 100x growth requirements. GitLab is exiting 22 countries, flattening management layers, and partnering with an unspecified AI lab to rebuild its platform for agent-scale workloads. The company reported first-quarter revenue of $264 million, up 23% year-over-year, and expects to incur $30 to $35 million in restructuring costs.

Google — ongoing through May. Alphabet’s Google has quietly cut employees across its Cloud division, including its Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant-linked cybersecurity staff, even as Cloud revenue grew 63% to exceed $20 billion for the first time and its backlog nearly doubled to over $460 billion. Over the past year, Google has cut more than a third of the managers overseeing small teams — 35% fewer managers with fewer direct reports. Unlike most companies on this list, Google has never announced a single overall number — the cuts have come through a rolling performance review process, a voluntary buyout program, and structural reorganizations, with outside estimates putting the 2026 total at between 1,500 and 3,000+ engineers.

Intuit — May 20, 2026. Intuit announced plans to eliminate roughly 3,000 jobs — about 17% of its total workforce — in a restructuring centered on reducing complexity and reallocating resources toward AI. CEO Sasan Goodarzi reportedly told staff the company is reducing complexity and simplifying the structure so it can deliver better products.

Meta — May 20-21, 2026. Meta laid off about 8,000 employees, roughly 10% of its workforce, while moving about 7,000 employees into new AI-focused roles (that they reportedly hate). CEO Mark Zuckerberg told staff the cuts were necessary because “success isn’t a given” in AI.

Cisco — May 14, 2026. Cisco announced it’s cutting nearly 4,000 jobs, about 5% of its workforce, despite reporting better-than-expected profit and revenue. CFO Mark Patterson said: “This was really not a savings-driven restructure… this is more [about] realigning … resources around silicon, optics, security and AI.”

Cloudflare — May 7-8, 2026. Cloudflare cut about 20% of its workforce (1,100 people), reporting quarterly revenue of $639.8 million, up 34% year-over-year and the highest single quarter in company history. CEO Matthew Prince wrote that “the vast majority of those we laid off last week were measurers” — middle management, finance, legal, internal auditing, and revenue recognition.

General Motors — May 12, 2026. GM eliminated 500 to 600 jobs, largely in IT roles in Austin, Texas, and Warren, Michigan, saying it was reevaluating its workforce needs amid uncertain market conditions. A person familiar with the cuts told CNBC that AI played a role in the decision but that it wasn’t the only reason. GM’s statement said it was “transforming its Information Technology organization to better position the company for the future.” Despite the cuts, the company still had roughly 80 open IT positions, including roles in AI, motorsports, and autonomous vehicles.

Coinbase — May 5, 2026. The crypto exchange said it was cutting about 700 employees, or 14% of its staff, as part of a restructuring aimed at addressing market volatility and increasing AI efficiency. The company flattened its organizational structure to five layers below the CEO and COO, and said it would experiment with “one-person teams” combining engineering, design, and product roles. CEO Brian Armstrong wrote that AI had changed the pace of work dramatically — “engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks” — and that the company needed to “leverage AI across every facet of our jobs.”

PayPal — May 5, 2026. PayPal announced plans to cut around 20% of its workforce over the next two to three years — north of 4,500 jobs — as part of a turnaround strategy centered on AI adoption and organizational simplification. CEO Enrique Lores told investors the company would “aggressively adopt AI” in its development processes and formed a new “AI transformation and simplification” team reporting directly to him, tasked with redesigning the company’s processes “function by function.” Lores framed the cuts as removing organizational layers, and said AI would extend well beyond coding into customer service, support operations, and risk management.

Microsoft — April-May 2026. Microsoft offered buyouts structured as voluntary separations, without disclosing how many employees these would impact. CFO Amy Hood said total headcount declined year-over-year in fiscal Q3, and is expected to keep declining as the company focuses on “building high-performing teams that operate with pace and agility” amid rising AI investment.

Snap — April 16, 2026. Snap cut roughly 16% of its global workforce — about 1,000 full-time employees — and closed more than 300 open roles, with CEO Evan Spiegel citing AI advancements as a key driver. “Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence enable our teams to reduce repetitive work, increase velocity, and better support our community, partners, and advertisers,” Spiegel wrote in a memo filed with the SEC. The company said it had already seen small squads using AI tools to drive progress across Snapchat+, ad platform performance, and infrastructure efficiency.

IBM — rolling through 2026. Between Q4 2025 cuts and April 2026 Red Hat engineering reductions, estimates range from 3,000 to 9,000 U.S. positions eliminated, bringing IBM’s cumulative total since September 2024 above 15,000. Bloomberg reported IBM plans to triple its U.S. entry-level hiring for AI and hybrid-cloud roles, even as roughly 200 HR positions were replaced by AI agents. An IBM spokesperson described the Q4 2025 round as a routine rebalancing affecting “a low single-digit percentage” of its global workforce.

Atlassian — March 11, 2026. Atlassian cut about 1,600 jobs (10% of its workforce) to “rebalance” toward AI and enterprise sales, even as shares rose nearly 2% on the news. CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes said: “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.”

Dell — January 30 (though disclosed in March 2026). Dell’s total workforce fell about 10% in fiscal 2026 — roughly 11,000 jobs — to about 97,000 employees from 108,000 a year earlier, with $569 million spent on severance. The cuts came as Dell projected its AI-optimized server revenue could double in fiscal 2027.

Oracle — March 5-31, 2026. As noted above, Oracle began telling employees it would be cutting thousands of jobs via terminal emails. The cuts came even as Oracle posted $3.7 billion in quarterly net income, up 27% year-over-year, with remaining performance obligations up 325% to $553 billion — savings redirected toward AI data centers. The cuts that would later total 21,000 over 12 months, as Oracle disclosed in its June 22 annual filing.

Block — February 26-27, 2026. Jack Dorsey’s Block cut 4,000 jobs — nearly half its workforce, down to under 6,000 from over 10,000. Dorsey wrote on X: “We’re already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company.” He added: “I think most companies are late. Within the next year, I believe the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes.”

Salesforce — February 10, 2026. Salesforce laid off fewer than 1,000 employees across marketing, product management, data analytics, and its Agentforce AI unit. The company told Fortune, “Because of the benefits and efficiencies of Agentforce, we’ve seen the number of support cases we handle decline and we no longer need to actively backfill support engineer roles.” This followed an earlier cut of about 4,000 customer-support roles, shrinking that team from roughly 9,000 to 5,000, with CEO Marc Benioff saying the company needed “less heads” because AI agents handle the work.

Amazon — January 28, 2026. Amazon cut 16,000 corporate jobs, following 14,000 cuts in October 2025 — about 9% of its corporate workforce in three months. The company said it was part of “strengthen[ing] our organization by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy.” CEO Andy Jassy had said in June 2025 that, “As we roll out more generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today… in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.”

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

#Monday.com #latest #tech #company #blame #layoffs #TechCrunchAI,Layoffs">Monday.com is the latest tech company to blame AI for layoffs — here are 20 others | TechCrunch

Monday.com, the Tel Aviv-based work management software company known for its colorful, customizable project-tracking boards, this week became the latest tech company to cite AI as a factor in job cuts. On Wednesday, the company said in an SEC filing that it will lay off about 20% of its workforce, or just over 600 employees, as part of a “restructuring plan” tied to its “ongoing transformation of its product, marketing, and go-to-market strategy” in support of “a leaner, more focused operating model” as it continues investing in its “AI-driven growth strategy.”

Co-founder Eran Zinman told employees in a LinkedIn memo that the move “was not made to reduce costs or replace people with AI,” positioning it instead as adapting the organization to a new AI-first vision the company laid out roughly a year ago when it rebranded around a platform-wide AI push. Monday.com, which has two offices in the U.S., expects $45 million to $55 million in net restructuring charges but still projects up to 20% year-over-year revenue growth for 2026.

So far, according to new Financial Times analysis, U.S. tech companies have slashed nearly 140,000 jobs since the start of this year, with Amazon, Oracle, Meta, and Microsoft alone accounting for almost 50,000 of those cuts as they funnel hundreds of billions of dollars into AI data center buildouts. Interestingly, the FT also 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, suggesting the market doesn’t entirely buy the stories that the companies are telling.

Still, the picture isn’t uniformly bleak. The FT notes that AI-focused companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are hiring rapidly, absorbing some of the talent shed elsewhere in the industry. And within some of the very companies making cuts, headcount is shifting rather than disappearing entirely. Meta, for instance, earlier this year moved roughly 7,000 employees into new AI-focused roles even as it laid off 8,000 others, and IBM says it’s tripling entry-level hiring for AI and hybrid-cloud roles alongside recent cuts.

Below is a running look — in reverse chronological order — at the bigger tech companies that have announced significant layoffs this year with AI as a stated factor.



Microsoft — July 9, 2026. Microsoft cut about 4,800 roles, or 2.1% of its global workforce, most of them in its Xbox gaming unit, resetting the business only three years after acquiring Activision Blizzard for $75 billion, per the FT. Separately, it offered buyouts structured as voluntary separations, without disclosing how many employees these would impact. The company said the role eliminations were “not being replaced by AI” but acknowledged “AI is changing how work gets done.” CFO Amy Hood said total headcount declined year-over-year in fiscal Q3, and was expected to keep declining as the company focuses on “building high-performing teams that operate with pace and agility” amid rising AI investment.

Oracle — June 22, 2026. Oracle disclosed in late June that it had reduced its workforce by 21,000 employees over the past 12 months, a decline of 13%, which means more cuts than was previously known, including because of AI. “The adoption and deployment of AI technologies across our operations have resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce,” the company said in an annual financial regulatory filing.

GitLab — June 3, 2026. GitLab laid off roughly 350 workers, about 14% of its staff, to fund AI infrastructure investment and handle surging traffic from AI workflows. CEO Bill Staples said agentic workloads are “pushing competitors to the brink” and that the company had begun a “generational rebuild” of its core infrastructure to support what he called 100x growth requirements. GitLab is exiting 22 countries, flattening management layers, and partnering with an unspecified AI lab to rebuild its platform for agent-scale workloads. The company reported first-quarter revenue of $264 million, up 23% year-over-year, and expects to incur $30 to $35 million in restructuring costs.

Google — ongoing through May. Alphabet’s Google has quietly cut employees across its Cloud division, including its Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant-linked cybersecurity staff, even as Cloud revenue grew 63% to exceed $20 billion for the first time and its backlog nearly doubled to over $460 billion. Over the past year, Google has cut more than a third of the managers overseeing small teams — 35% fewer managers with fewer direct reports. Unlike most companies on this list, Google has never announced a single overall number — the cuts have come through a rolling performance review process, a voluntary buyout program, and structural reorganizations, with outside estimates putting the 2026 total at between 1,500 and 3,000+ engineers.

Intuit — May 20, 2026. Intuit announced plans to eliminate roughly 3,000 jobs — about 17% of its total workforce — in a restructuring centered on reducing complexity and reallocating resources toward AI. CEO Sasan Goodarzi reportedly told staff the company is reducing complexity and simplifying the structure so it can deliver better products.

Meta — May 20-21, 2026. Meta laid off about 8,000 employees, roughly 10% of its workforce, while moving about 7,000 employees into new AI-focused roles (that they reportedly hate). CEO Mark Zuckerberg told staff the cuts were necessary because “success isn’t a given” in AI.

Cisco — May 14, 2026. Cisco announced it’s cutting nearly 4,000 jobs, about 5% of its workforce, despite reporting better-than-expected profit and revenue. CFO Mark Patterson said: “This was really not a savings-driven restructure… this is more [about] realigning … resources around silicon, optics, security and AI.”

Cloudflare — May 7-8, 2026. Cloudflare cut about 20% of its workforce (1,100 people), reporting quarterly revenue of $639.8 million, up 34% year-over-year and the highest single quarter in company history. CEO Matthew Prince wrote that “the vast majority of those we laid off last week were measurers” — middle management, finance, legal, internal auditing, and revenue recognition.

General Motors — May 12, 2026. GM eliminated 500 to 600 jobs, largely in IT roles in Austin, Texas, and Warren, Michigan, saying it was reevaluating its workforce needs amid uncertain market conditions. A person familiar with the cuts told CNBC that AI played a role in the decision but that it wasn’t the only reason. GM’s statement said it was “transforming its Information Technology organization to better position the company for the future.” Despite the cuts, the company still had roughly 80 open IT positions, including roles in AI, motorsports, and autonomous vehicles.

Coinbase — May 5, 2026. The crypto exchange said it was cutting about 700 employees, or 14% of its staff, as part of a restructuring aimed at addressing market volatility and increasing AI efficiency. The company flattened its organizational structure to five layers below the CEO and COO, and said it would experiment with “one-person teams” combining engineering, design, and product roles. CEO Brian Armstrong wrote that AI had changed the pace of work dramatically — “engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks” — and that the company needed to “leverage AI across every facet of our jobs.”

PayPal — May 5, 2026. PayPal announced plans to cut around 20% of its workforce over the next two to three years — north of 4,500 jobs — as part of a turnaround strategy centered on AI adoption and organizational simplification. CEO Enrique Lores told investors the company would “aggressively adopt AI” in its development processes and formed a new “AI transformation and simplification” team reporting directly to him, tasked with redesigning the company’s processes “function by function.” Lores framed the cuts as removing organizational layers, and said AI would extend well beyond coding into customer service, support operations, and risk management.

Microsoft — April-May 2026. Microsoft offered buyouts structured as voluntary separations, without disclosing how many employees these would impact. CFO Amy Hood said total headcount declined year-over-year in fiscal Q3, and is expected to keep declining as the company focuses on “building high-performing teams that operate with pace and agility” amid rising AI investment.

Snap — April 16, 2026. Snap cut roughly 16% of its global workforce — about 1,000 full-time employees — and closed more than 300 open roles, with CEO Evan Spiegel citing AI advancements as a key driver. “Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence enable our teams to reduce repetitive work, increase velocity, and better support our community, partners, and advertisers,” Spiegel wrote in a memo filed with the SEC. The company said it had already seen small squads using AI tools to drive progress across Snapchat+, ad platform performance, and infrastructure efficiency.

IBM — rolling through 2026. Between Q4 2025 cuts and April 2026 Red Hat engineering reductions, estimates range from 3,000 to 9,000 U.S. positions eliminated, bringing IBM’s cumulative total since September 2024 above 15,000. Bloomberg reported IBM plans to triple its U.S. entry-level hiring for AI and hybrid-cloud roles, even as roughly 200 HR positions were replaced by AI agents. An IBM spokesperson described the Q4 2025 round as a routine rebalancing affecting “a low single-digit percentage” of its global workforce.

Atlassian — March 11, 2026. Atlassian cut about 1,600 jobs (10% of its workforce) to “rebalance” toward AI and enterprise sales, even as shares rose nearly 2% on the news. CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes said: “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.”

Dell — January 30 (though disclosed in March 2026). Dell’s total workforce fell about 10% in fiscal 2026 — roughly 11,000 jobs — to about 97,000 employees from 108,000 a year earlier, with $569 million spent on severance. The cuts came as Dell projected its AI-optimized server revenue could double in fiscal 2027.

Oracle — March 5-31, 2026. As noted above, Oracle began telling employees it would be cutting thousands of jobs via terminal emails. The cuts came even as Oracle posted $3.7 billion in quarterly net income, up 27% year-over-year, with remaining performance obligations up 325% to $553 billion — savings redirected toward AI data centers. The cuts that would later total 21,000 over 12 months, as Oracle disclosed in its June 22 annual filing.

Block — February 26-27, 2026. Jack Dorsey’s Block cut 4,000 jobs — nearly half its workforce, down to under 6,000 from over 10,000. Dorsey wrote on X: “We’re already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company.” He added: “I think most companies are late. Within the next year, I believe the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes.”

Salesforce — February 10, 2026. Salesforce laid off fewer than 1,000 employees across marketing, product management, data analytics, and its Agentforce AI unit. The company told Fortune, “Because of the benefits and efficiencies of Agentforce, we’ve seen the number of support cases we handle decline and we no longer need to actively backfill support engineer roles.” This followed an earlier cut of about 4,000 customer-support roles, shrinking that team from roughly 9,000 to 5,000, with CEO Marc Benioff saying the company needed “less heads” because AI agents handle the work.

Amazon — January 28, 2026. Amazon cut 16,000 corporate jobs, following 14,000 cuts in October 2025 — about 9% of its corporate workforce in three months. The company said it was part of “strengthen[ing] our organization by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy.” CEO Andy Jassy had said in June 2025 that, “As we roll out more generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today… in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.”

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#Monday.com #latest #tech #company #blame #layoffs #TechCrunchAI,Layoffs
iKairos is designed to understand both its user and their surroundings, allowing it to offer proactive assistance instead of simply responding to prompts.

iKairos Wants to Be More Than Another AI Wearable

Jibo’s Spiritual Successor Is Here: Lingverse Unveils AI Wearable iKairos
	
If you remember Jibo, you’ll probably also remember its emotional farewell. The social robot, once named one of TIME’s Best Inventions, shut down in 2019 with a message asking owners to “say hello” to future robots. Singapore-based AI hardware startup Lingverse, the team behind the original visoon, has announced  million in Pre-A funding to develop iKairos, a wearable AI companion that the company describes as the spiritual successor to Jibo. Unlike existing AI wearables, iKairos is designed to understand both its user and their surroundings, allowing it to offer proactive assistance instead of simply responding to prompts.



iKairos Wants to Be More Than Another AI Wearable







AI wearables have gained momentum over the past year, but most products still rely on a single camera or microphone to interpret the world from the wearer’s perspective. Lingverse believes that’s only half the picture. The company says iKairos is the first dual-perspective AI wearable, featuring a modular design that can be worn on the body or used as a desktop device. Users can switch its field of view between themselves and their surroundings, allowing the AI to build context about both the person wearing it and the environment around them.



The goal is to make the device less reactive and more proactive. Instead of waiting for voice commands, iKairos is designed to recognize situations where reminders, suggestions, or questions might be useful based on what it observes over time.



Beyond that, the company says iKairos includes a physical camera shutter that completely blocks visual recording whenever users want additional privacy. It also claims that personal data is either processed locally on the device or encrypted during transmission, and that user data won’t be used to train its AI models.



Speaking on the matter, Jiawei Gu, Founder and CEO of Lingverse, said:




Today, with iKairos, we can finally pick up where the Jibo team left off and deliver on the promise. iKairos continuously observes both you and your surroundings, creating the context that today’s AI lacks. Once the AI understands your life instead of just your prompts, iKairos can begin to act as a personal AI guardian, which is capable of unlocking entirely new experiences and proactively adapts to and works around your lifestyle.”


#Jibos #Spiritual #Successor #Lingverse #Unveils #Wearable #iKairosAI

AI wearables have gained momentum over the past year, but most products still rely on a single camera or microphone to interpret the world from the wearer’s perspective. Lingverse believes that’s only half the picture. The company says iKairos is the first dual-perspective AI wearable, featuring a modular design that can be worn on the body or used as a desktop device. Users can switch its field of view between themselves and their surroundings, allowing the AI to build context about both the person wearing it and the environment around them.

The goal is to make the device less reactive and more proactive. Instead of waiting for voice commands, iKairos is designed to recognize situations where reminders, suggestions, or questions might be useful based on what it observes over time.

Beyond that, the company says iKairos includes a physical camera shutter that completely blocks visual recording whenever users want additional privacy. It also claims that personal data is either processed locally on the device or encrypted during transmission, and that user data won’t be used to train its AI models.

Speaking on the matter, Jiawei Gu, Founder and CEO of Lingverse, said:

Today, with iKairos, we can finally pick up where the Jibo team left off and deliver on the promise. iKairos continuously observes both you and your surroundings, creating the context that today’s AI lacks. Once the AI understands your life instead of just your prompts, iKairos can begin to act as a personal AI guardian, which is capable of unlocking entirely new experiences and proactively adapts to and works around your lifestyle.”

#Jibos #Spiritual #Successor #Lingverse #Unveils #Wearable #iKairosAI">Jibo’s Spiritual Successor Is Here: Lingverse Unveils AI Wearable iKairos
	
If you remember Jibo, you’ll probably also remember its emotional farewell. The social robot, once named one of TIME’s Best Inventions, shut down in 2019 with a message asking owners to “say hello” to future robots. Singapore-based AI hardware startup Lingverse, the team behind the original visoon, has announced  million in Pre-A funding to develop iKairos, a wearable AI companion that the company describes as the spiritual successor to Jibo. Unlike existing AI wearables, iKairos is designed to understand both its user and their surroundings, allowing it to offer proactive assistance instead of simply responding to prompts.



iKairos Wants to Be More Than Another AI Wearable







AI wearables have gained momentum over the past year, but most products still rely on a single camera or microphone to interpret the world from the wearer’s perspective. Lingverse believes that’s only half the picture. The company says iKairos is the first dual-perspective AI wearable, featuring a modular design that can be worn on the body or used as a desktop device. Users can switch its field of view between themselves and their surroundings, allowing the AI to build context about both the person wearing it and the environment around them.



The goal is to make the device less reactive and more proactive. Instead of waiting for voice commands, iKairos is designed to recognize situations where reminders, suggestions, or questions might be useful based on what it observes over time.



Beyond that, the company says iKairos includes a physical camera shutter that completely blocks visual recording whenever users want additional privacy. It also claims that personal data is either processed locally on the device or encrypted during transmission, and that user data won’t be used to train its AI models.



Speaking on the matter, Jiawei Gu, Founder and CEO of Lingverse, said:




Today, with iKairos, we can finally pick up where the Jibo team left off and deliver on the promise. iKairos continuously observes both you and your surroundings, creating the context that today’s AI lacks. Once the AI understands your life instead of just your prompts, iKairos can begin to act as a personal AI guardian, which is capable of unlocking entirely new experiences and proactively adapts to and works around your lifestyle.”


#Jibos #Spiritual #Successor #Lingverse #Unveils #Wearable #iKairosAI

is designed to understand both its user and their surroundings, allowing it to offer proactive assistance instead of simply responding to prompts.

iKairos Wants to Be More Than Another AI Wearable

Jibo’s Spiritual Successor Is Here: Lingverse Unveils AI Wearable iKairos
	
If you remember Jibo, you’ll probably also remember its emotional farewell. The social robot, once named one of TIME’s Best Inventions, shut down in 2019 with a message asking owners to “say hello” to future robots. Singapore-based AI hardware startup Lingverse, the team behind the original visoon, has announced  million in Pre-A funding to develop iKairos, a wearable AI companion that the company describes as the spiritual successor to Jibo. Unlike existing AI wearables, iKairos is designed to understand both its user and their surroundings, allowing it to offer proactive assistance instead of simply responding to prompts.



iKairos Wants to Be More Than Another AI Wearable







AI wearables have gained momentum over the past year, but most products still rely on a single camera or microphone to interpret the world from the wearer’s perspective. Lingverse believes that’s only half the picture. The company says iKairos is the first dual-perspective AI wearable, featuring a modular design that can be worn on the body or used as a desktop device. Users can switch its field of view between themselves and their surroundings, allowing the AI to build context about both the person wearing it and the environment around them.



The goal is to make the device less reactive and more proactive. Instead of waiting for voice commands, iKairos is designed to recognize situations where reminders, suggestions, or questions might be useful based on what it observes over time.



Beyond that, the company says iKairos includes a physical camera shutter that completely blocks visual recording whenever users want additional privacy. It also claims that personal data is either processed locally on the device or encrypted during transmission, and that user data won’t be used to train its AI models.



Speaking on the matter, Jiawei Gu, Founder and CEO of Lingverse, said:




Today, with iKairos, we can finally pick up where the Jibo team left off and deliver on the promise. iKairos continuously observes both you and your surroundings, creating the context that today’s AI lacks. Once the AI understands your life instead of just your prompts, iKairos can begin to act as a personal AI guardian, which is capable of unlocking entirely new experiences and proactively adapts to and works around your lifestyle.”


#Jibos #Spiritual #Successor #Lingverse #Unveils #Wearable #iKairosAI

AI wearables have gained momentum over the past year, but most products still rely on a single camera or microphone to interpret the world from the wearer’s perspective. Lingverse believes that’s only half the picture. The company says iKairos is the first dual-perspective AI wearable, featuring a modular design that can be worn on the body or used as a desktop device. Users can switch its field of view between themselves and their surroundings, allowing the AI to build context about both the person wearing it and the environment around them.

The goal is to make the device less reactive and more proactive. Instead of waiting for voice commands, iKairos is designed to recognize situations where reminders, suggestions, or questions might be useful based on what it observes over time.

Beyond that, the company says iKairos includes a physical camera shutter that completely blocks visual recording whenever users want additional privacy. It also claims that personal data is either processed locally on the device or encrypted during transmission, and that user data won’t be used to train its AI models.

Speaking on the matter, Jiawei Gu, Founder and CEO of Lingverse, said:

Today, with iKairos, we can finally pick up where the Jibo team left off and deliver on the promise. iKairos continuously observes both you and your surroundings, creating the context that today’s AI lacks. Once the AI understands your life instead of just your prompts, iKairos can begin to act as a personal AI guardian, which is capable of unlocking entirely new experiences and proactively adapts to and works around your lifestyle.”

#Jibos #Spiritual #Successor #Lingverse #Unveils #Wearable #iKairosAI">Jibo’s Spiritual Successor Is Here: Lingverse Unveils AI Wearable iKairos

If you remember Jibo, you’ll probably also remember its emotional farewell. The social robot, once named one of TIME’s Best Inventions, shut down in 2019 with a message asking owners to “say hello” to future robots. Singapore-based AI hardware startup Lingverse, the team behind the original visoon, has announced $29 million in Pre-A funding to develop iKairos, a wearable AI companion that the company describes as the spiritual successor to Jibo. Unlike existing AI wearables, iKairos is designed to understand both its user and their surroundings, allowing it to offer proactive assistance instead of simply responding to prompts.

iKairos Wants to Be More Than Another AI Wearable

Jibo’s Spiritual Successor Is Here: Lingverse Unveils AI Wearable iKairos
	
If you remember Jibo, you’ll probably also remember its emotional farewell. The social robot, once named one of TIME’s Best Inventions, shut down in 2019 with a message asking owners to “say hello” to future robots. Singapore-based AI hardware startup Lingverse, the team behind the original visoon, has announced  million in Pre-A funding to develop iKairos, a wearable AI companion that the company describes as the spiritual successor to Jibo. Unlike existing AI wearables, iKairos is designed to understand both its user and their surroundings, allowing it to offer proactive assistance instead of simply responding to prompts.



iKairos Wants to Be More Than Another AI Wearable







AI wearables have gained momentum over the past year, but most products still rely on a single camera or microphone to interpret the world from the wearer’s perspective. Lingverse believes that’s only half the picture. The company says iKairos is the first dual-perspective AI wearable, featuring a modular design that can be worn on the body or used as a desktop device. Users can switch its field of view between themselves and their surroundings, allowing the AI to build context about both the person wearing it and the environment around them.



The goal is to make the device less reactive and more proactive. Instead of waiting for voice commands, iKairos is designed to recognize situations where reminders, suggestions, or questions might be useful based on what it observes over time.



Beyond that, the company says iKairos includes a physical camera shutter that completely blocks visual recording whenever users want additional privacy. It also claims that personal data is either processed locally on the device or encrypted during transmission, and that user data won’t be used to train its AI models.



Speaking on the matter, Jiawei Gu, Founder and CEO of Lingverse, said:




Today, with iKairos, we can finally pick up where the Jibo team left off and deliver on the promise. iKairos continuously observes both you and your surroundings, creating the context that today’s AI lacks. Once the AI understands your life instead of just your prompts, iKairos can begin to act as a personal AI guardian, which is capable of unlocking entirely new experiences and proactively adapts to and works around your lifestyle.”


#Jibos #Spiritual #Successor #Lingverse #Unveils #Wearable #iKairosAI

AI wearables have gained momentum over the past year, but most products still rely on a single camera or microphone to interpret the world from the wearer’s perspective. Lingverse believes that’s only half the picture. The company says iKairos is the first dual-perspective AI wearable, featuring a modular design that can be worn on the body or used as a desktop device. Users can switch its field of view between themselves and their surroundings, allowing the AI to build context about both the person wearing it and the environment around them.

The goal is to make the device less reactive and more proactive. Instead of waiting for voice commands, iKairos is designed to recognize situations where reminders, suggestions, or questions might be useful based on what it observes over time.

Beyond that, the company says iKairos includes a physical camera shutter that completely blocks visual recording whenever users want additional privacy. It also claims that personal data is either processed locally on the device or encrypted during transmission, and that user data won’t be used to train its AI models.

Speaking on the matter, Jiawei Gu, Founder and CEO of Lingverse, said:

Today, with iKairos, we can finally pick up where the Jibo team left off and deliver on the promise. iKairos continuously observes both you and your surroundings, creating the context that today’s AI lacks. Once the AI understands your life instead of just your prompts, iKairos can begin to act as a personal AI guardian, which is capable of unlocking entirely new experiences and proactively adapts to and works around your lifestyle.”

#Jibos #Spiritual #Successor #Lingverse #Unveils #Wearable #iKairosAI

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