Monday.com and Airtable Layoffs Raise Questions About Whether AI Is Really the Cause

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Monday.com cut roughly 20% of its workforce, a plan first disclosed in a July 2026 SEC filing that tied it to a strategic shift toward its AI Work Platform and a leaner structure. Its founders explicitly rejected the idea that the cuts were meant to replace people with AI, saying the aim was not cost reduction, and said most savings would go back into people, products and AI. Bending Spoons is cutting a large part of Airtable's staff weeks after acquiring it, with its leadership framing the move as a belief that small teams ship more while pointing to new AI-focused features. The author found no independent evidence that AI absorbed the eliminated work at either company, and noted that media outlets, rather than the companies, often supply the AI link. A tracker cited in the piece found that employers gave AI as the sole reason in only 23 of 259 AI-linked cuts.

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