Intuit lays off 10% of staff to focus on AI

Tristan Greene3 hours agoIntuit lays off 10% of staff to focus on AIAbout 1,800 people were laid off, but the company plans on hiring about the same number of replacements.625 Total views4 Total sharesListen to article 0:00NewsOwn this piece of crypto historyCollect this article as NFTJoin us on social networksFinancial and fintech firm Intuit recently announced plans to lay off approximately 1,800 workers in order to further pursue the company’s artificial intelligence endeavors. 

This boils down to a restructuring of the company, with approximately 10% of its workforce slated for departure. CEO Sasan Goodarzi reportedly emailed 1,050 of those being laid off to say their performance did not meet expectations. Another 300 were told their positions had been eliminated. The era of AI

The layoffs evidently weren’t related to the company’s bottom line. Per Goodarzi, “We do not do layoffs to cut costs, and that remains true in this case.” The CEO attributed the layoffs to a changing technological landscape and a pivot to further the company’s AI endeavors. 

But, in what might be a twist on the theme, the workers will not be replaced by artificial intelligence. Instead, they’ll seemingly be replaced by human workers who specialize in AI.

Per an Intuit blog post:“We will hire approximately 1,800 new people primarily in engineering, product, and customer facing roles such as sales, customer success, and marketing.”

This reorganization looks to cost the company somewhere between $250 million and $260 million, according to regulatory filings. The company’s stock dipped by around 3.6% on the news.

On social media, the response could also be described as mildly negative.

Technologist Dare Obasanjo said the announcement “epitomizes the simultaneous feast and famine that is today’s tech industry.” Obasanjo also opined that the company had “branded” the laid off workers by publicly stating that the majority being laid off had failed to meet expectations.Source:Dare Obasanjo

Under a section in the blog post announcing the layoffs titled “Taking care of our people,” Goodarzi writes: “We’ve significantly raised the bar on our expectations of employee performance, resulting in approximately 1,050 employees leaving the company who are not meeting expectations and who we believe will be more successful outside of Intuit.”

The company also said it’s giving those laid off severance packages, 60 days’ notice, and access to career transition services and six months of continuing healthcare benefits. 

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