By Ebi Kesiena
Snap Inc, the parent company of Snapchat, has announced plans to cut about 1,000 jobs as it leans on artificial intelligence to boost efficiency and accelerate its path to profitability.
The job cuts, disclosed recently, represent roughly 16 per cent of the company’s full-time workforce, alongside the elimination of more than 300 unfilled roles.
Chief Executive Officer, Evan Spiegel, said in a memo to staff that the restructuring reflects how advances in AI are reshaping operations within the company.
“We believe that rapid advancements in artificial intelligence enable our teams to reduce repetitive work, increase velocity and better support our community, partners and advertisers,” Spiegel wrote.
“We have already witnessed small squads leveraging AI tools to drive meaningful progress across several important initiatives.”
The California-based tech firm is the latest in a growing list of companies trimming their workforce while highlighting productivity gains linked to AI adoption.
Spiegel acknowledged the human impact of the decision, noting that the layoffs were not taken lightly.
“This is an incredibly difficult decision, and I am deeply sorry to the colleagues who will be leaving us,” he said.
According to the memo, Snap expects the move to cut more than $500 million from its annual costs by the second half of the year, helping to establish “a clearer path to net-income profitability.”
The company has undergone multiple rounds of layoffs over the past four years as it struggles to compete with rivals such as Instagram, TikTok and YouTube in the highly competitive social media market.
Meanwhile, activist investor Irenic Capital Management recently disclosed a 2.5 per cent stake in Snap and has called for tighter cost controls, including a potential exit from its Spectacles smart glasses division.
Following news of the layoffs, Snap’s shares rose by more than 7.5 per cent in after-hours trading, though the stock remains below its value at the start of the year.
Data from job tracking platform Layoffs.fyi indicates that over 72,000 employees have been laid off by nearly 90 tech companies globally so far this year, revealing a broader industry shift toward AI-driven operations.
