Monday.com Joins a Growing List of 20+ Tech Companies Blaming AI for Layoffs — What It Means for Your Business

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Monday.com Joins a Growing List of Tech Companies Citing AI in Layoffs — Here Is What Business Leaders Need to Know

The pace of AI-driven workforce restructuring is accelerating. Monday.com has become the latest major technology company to cite artificial intelligence as a contributing factor in significant layoffs, joining a list of more than 20 firms that have made similar announcements in 2026 alone. The trend, tracked in detail by TechCrunch reporters Rebecca Bellan and Connie Loizos, represents one of the clearest signals yet that the AI transition is no longer a future event — it is happening now, and it is reshaping how companies of all sizes think about headcount, productivity, and growth.

What Is Actually Happening

According to TechCrunch's running list, a growing number of major tech employers have announced notable layoffs this year while explicitly naming AI as a factor in their decisions. Monday.com is the most recent addition. The list spans companies across software, enterprise tools, and platforms — and it is being updated in reverse chronological order as new announcements emerge.

This is not a story about a single company making a difficult call. It is a pattern. When two or three companies cite AI in layoffs, it can be written off as a narrative choice. When more than 20 do it within a single calendar year, it signals a structural shift in how technology organizations are evaluating labor costs against automation capability.

Why This Matters Beyond Silicon Valley

Most of the companies on this list are not obscure startups. They are the platforms, software vendors, and infrastructure providers that small and mid-sized businesses rely on every day. That matters for two reasons.

First, the tools your business uses are being rebuilt around AI from the inside out. The companies that make your project management software, your customer support platforms, your analytics dashboards — they are eliminating the human teams that built and maintained those products and replacing that capacity with AI systems. The products may look the same on the surface, but what is powering them is changing fast.

Second, the business logic behind these decisions is spreading. If a publicly traded company with hundreds of engineers can justify reducing headcount by pointing to AI productivity gains, smaller organizations are going to face the same pressure — from boards, investors, and even their own leadership teams. The question is no longer whether AI will affect staffing decisions at your company. It is when and how.

The Risk of Misreading This Trend

There is a temptation to interpret this wave of layoffs as proof that AI is simply eliminating jobs. That framing is too simple and, frankly, too passive. What these companies are actually communicating — whether they intend to or not — is that they made significant investments in AI capability and restructured their operations around it. The layoffs are the outcome of that investment, not the cause.

For business teams, this distinction is critical. Companies that are falling behind are not losing employees to AI. They are losing competitive ground to the organizations that figured out how to use AI to operate leaner, move faster, and reduce their dependency on headcount for routine work. The risk is not automation itself. The risk is being the organization that waits too long to adapt.

This is also a leadership communication challenge. As covered in our post on communicating AI strategy to your team, how you frame AI adoption internally has a direct impact on morale, retention, and buy-in. The companies making headlines right now largely failed at that part.

What SMBs Should Take Away

For small and mid-sized businesses, the takeaway here is not to panic — it is to get deliberate. The technology reshaping enterprise-level companies is available to you too, often at a fraction of the cost. The advantage smaller organizations have is agility. You can identify one or two operational areas where AI tools can genuinely reduce manual workload, pilot those tools without the political weight of a large organization, and build momentum from real results.

That might mean using AI to handle first drafts of internal reports. It might mean automating parts of your client communication workflow. It might mean rethinking how your team uses AI tools for business before a competitor forces you to rethink it under pressure.

What it should not mean is treating AI as a cost-cutting exercise before you have done the work of understanding where it actually adds value. The companies making headlines right now largely skipped that step, or at least did it poorly.

For teams looking to build those workflows thoughtfully, WRRK.ai is built to help business teams identify, deploy, and manage AI tools without needing a dedicated engineering team to do it.

Original reporting by Rebecca Bellan and Connie Loizos at TechCrunch. Read the full running list at techcrunch.com.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why are so many tech companies citing AI as a reason for layoffs in 2026?

A growing number of technology companies have invested heavily in AI systems that can perform tasks previously handled by full-time employees — particularly in areas like software development, customer support, data analysis, and content production. As these tools have matured, companies are restructuring their workforces to reflect a smaller human headcount operating alongside more capable AI systems. More than 20 major tech firms have cited AI explicitly in layoff announcements so far in 2026, according to TechCrunch's tracking.

Does AI causing layoffs at big tech companies affect small businesses?

Yes, in several ways. The software tools and platforms small businesses rely on are being rebuilt around AI, which changes how they work and what they can do. More importantly, the competitive pressure to adopt AI is filtering down from enterprise to SMB markets. Businesses that delay integrating AI into their operations risk falling behind competitors that are already using it to reduce costs and move faster.

What should business leaders do in response to AI-driven workforce changes in the industry?

Rather than reacting to headlines, business leaders should take a proactive audit of which parts of their operations are most repetitive and time-intensive. Those are the areas where AI tools are most likely to deliver immediate value. Starting with targeted pilots, communicating the strategy clearly to your team, and focusing on augmentation rather than replacement tends to produce better outcomes than broad, reactive restructuring.

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