Snapchat’s parent company has axed roughly one in six of its workers, blaming AI for making a smaller team just as capable.
Snap Inc. confirmed Wednesday it is letting go of approximately 1,000 employees, about 16% of its full-time global workforce, in what CEO Evan Spiegel described in an internal memo as a painful but necessary step toward the company’s long-term survival.
In addition to the cuts, more than 300 open positions will not be filled. This means the total reduction in Snap’s planned headcount amounts to roughly a quarter of the workforce it had expected to operate with. The company had around 5,261 full-time employees as of December 2025, according to regulatory filings.
Spiegel broke the news to staff in a memo that was made public in an SEC filing. In it, he acknowledged the weight of the decision, writing, “This is an incredibly difficult decision, and I am deeply sorry to the colleagues who will be leaving us.”
He described the company as caught between larger rivals with vast resources and smaller, faster-moving competitors, a position he had flagged as far back as last autumn. “Snap faces a crucible moment — squeezed between giants with enormous resources and nimble startups moving fast,” the company wrote.
AI is doing more of the heavy lifting
Central to Snap’s justification for the cuts is its growing reliance on AI.
According to the company’s update, more than 65% of all new code at Snap is now generated by AI, and automated tools are already handling over 1 million support questions per month and flagging more than 7,500 software bugs through a code-review agent.
Spiegel pointed to what he called “small squads” of staff who have already been using AI tools to drive meaningful results, particularly in Snapchat+, the company’s subscription service, as well as improvements to ad platform performance and its Snap Lite infrastructure.
“We believe that rapid advancements in artificial intelligence enable our teams to reduce repetitive work, increase velocity, and better support our community, partners, and advertisers,” Spiegel wrote in the memo. It marks the first time the Snap chief has directly linked AI to staffing decisions at the company.
The restructuring is projected to strip more than $500 million from Snap’s annualized cost base by the second half of 2026, which Spiegel called a path toward “net-income profitability.”
Snap will take pre-tax charges of between $95 million and $130 million as a result of the cuts, the bulk of which are expected to land in the second quarter of this year. Adjusted operating expenses for the full year have been revised down by $250 million to approximately $2.75 billion.
Wall Street appeared to welcome the move. Snap’s stock climbed roughly 6% to 9% in early trading on Wednesday, though the shares remain down more than 30% since January.
On the revenue side, the company offered some reassurance, estimating Q1 sales of approximately $1.53 billion — up 12% year-on-year — alongside adjusted EBITDA of around $233 million, well ahead of analyst expectations. Full quarterly results are due on May 6.
A recurring pattern
Snap is far from alone.
The tech industry has shed tens of thousands of roles so far this year, with AI cited as a driving factor across many of the announcements:
Atlassian, Block, Pinterest, and Salesforce have also trimmed headcounts, often with the same AI efficiency argument attached.
Related reading: For more on how AI is driving job cuts across the industry, check out this breakdown of entry-level tech layoffs and what’s behind the trend.
