Tech companies are increasingly using artificial intelligence as a formal reason for massive cuts, even as businesses grow. According to TechCrunch and TrueUp, some 152,000 people have been laid off in the sector since early 2026, with AI being the most frequent cause of cuts for the third consecutive month, accounting for 22% of all reported cases.

Among the companies that announced restructuring under the guise of AI transformation were Block, Cloudflare, Meta, GitLab, Oracle, and Snap. Venture investor Mark Andrissen called AI a "silver bullet" to justify layoffs, noting that this is often due to management errors and overhiring during the pandemic, rather than actual automation of processes.

The situation is causing growing social tension. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also previously accused corporations of using AI as a pretext for cutbacks, and the Hanzhou People’s Court ruled in May that it was illegal to fire employees solely because they were replaced by neural networks.