Tech layoffs in 2026 where employers cited AI: a running list of the biggest cuts
TechCrunch has launched a running list that tracks major layoffs in the global tech sector in the first half of 2026 where employers directly cited «artificial intelligence» as the reason. By rough count, around 78,000 tech workers in the first half of the year were affected by layoffs announced in the same window as the company's AI investment or internal productivity-tool rollouts.
At the top of the list are Microsoft's 9,000 layoffs announced in May. The company said it was shrinking middle management and customer-success teams to «accelerate» its investment in AI engineering. IBM, Cisco, Salesforce and Workday made similar announcements in the second quarter.
Meta let go of 5,000 people in March and April. CFO Susan Li told investors that «AI productivity is allowing engineering teams to ship more product with fewer people». The cuts were concentrated in Reality Labs (Quest VR devices) and the ad-infrastructure teams.
Amazon Web Services cut 3,500 jobs in mid-May from its AWS customer-support organisation. The company described the deployment of AI call routing and automated support chatbots as a «meaningful productivity gain».
Google Cloud and Alphabet announced roughly 7,500 cuts in February and March, principally in Workspace support, Maps and the cloud sales-engineering org. CEO Sundar Pichai used the following phrasing in a note to employees: «AI is transforming every aspect of our business, and we are adapting our structure accordingly».
The other side of the trend: some companies are now hiring AI engineers at record pace. Anthropic, OpenAI, Cohere and Mistral collectively hired 6,200 people in the first half of 2026, a record. The average AI engineer salary in San Francisco crossed $320,000 a year.
US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data show that total tech-sector employment fell 1.8 per cent in the first half of 2026, the sharpest drop since the first big wave at the end of 2023. But the BLS notes that demand for AI engineers, prompt engineers and data-ops specialists is at all-time highs.
In Europe, SAP and Spotify made similar announcements. SAP said it had laid off 1,200 people in Germany and redirected teams to AI product squads. Spotify in May reduced its editorial content-curation teams by 30 per cent.
In Turkey, no major company has yet reported AI-cited layoffs at scale. But industry sources told TechCrunch that quiet downsizing in customer-service and content-operations roles has begun at large tech platforms such as Trendyol, Getir and Hepsiburada.
TechCrunch's list focuses on cases where the word «AI» appears in the same paragraph as a layoff announcement in investor calls or press releases. The outlet says the list will be kept live and updated weekly as new big cuts emerge. The trend could reshape the tech-sector employment picture by year-end.
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