Oracle revealed in the latest annual regulatory document that over the past 12 months, the number of company employees had decreased by 21,000, or about 13 per cent. According to the company, the introduction and deployment of AI technology in internal operations has led to, and may continue to result in, downsizing.
This disclosure added more explicit data to the 2026 wave of layoffs in the technology industry. While many companies continue to grow in revenues, more and more companies are describing AI as both an engine of growth and a cause of attrition. TechCrunch, citing data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, states that AI was the most frequently mentioned reason for the number of single-month layoffs in science and technology in May this year.
Many companies cut while growing.
In this combo, companies such as GitLab, Google, Meta, Cisco, Cloudflare, Snap and IBM all included AI, organizational simplifier or re-allocation of resources as a lay-offs context.
At the beginning of June, GitLab was retrenchmented approximately 350 persons, approximately 14 per cent of the total number of employees. According to the company, the adjustment was made to support AI infrastructure inputs and to respond to the increase in flows resulting from AI workflow. The company received $264 million a quarter, an increase of 23 per cent over the same period, with a projected restructuring cost of $30 to $35 million.
Meta reduced its staff in May by approximately 800, or about 10 per cent of the total number of employees, while transferring about 7000 employees to new AI-related positions. Cisco also announced in May a reduction of nearly 4000 posts, representing approximately 5 per cent of the total workforce, and indicated that the focus was on reallocating resources to chips, optical, security and AI operations.
Google and IBM did not give a single total
Google did not publish a one-time full-year staff reduction figure, but progressed through a continuous performance assessment, a voluntary separation plan and organizational restructuring. External estimates suggest that the size of the 2026 staff reduction in Google could range from 1,500 to more than 3000. At the same time, Google Cloud earned more than $20 billion for the first time, and the backlog of orders is almost doubling.
The situation of IBM is similar. According to the report, IBM has been continuously repositioning posts since the fourth quarter of 2025, with the United States estimated to be between 3000 and 9000. At the same time, IBM plans to expand the recruitment of US AI and mixed cloud-related junior positions, showing that its strategy is closer to a structural change rather than a simple contraction of the total number of jobs.
Coinbase also included AI efficiency in the restructuring.
In the encryption industry, Coinbase was also included in the list. In May, the company indicated that it would reduce its staff by approximately 700, or about 14 per cent of the total number of employees, owing to market fluctuations and increased AI efficiency. At the same time, the company compresses the management level and proposes to try to have a smaller team working together on engineering, design and products.
In addition, Intuit plans to reduce its staff by about 3000, PayPal plans to cut its staff by about 20 per cent over the next two to three years, Snap cuts by about 1,000, and Atlas Sian layoffs by about 1,600. The common reason given by several companies is that AI is changing the demand for workers for product development, customer services, support for operations and internal management.
From the present disclosure, technology companies do not use AI only as a direction for additional inputs, but are also reconfiguring teams, compressing middle back-office positions and shifting budgets to computing, infrastructure and automation tools.