3. Workday
Roles cut: 1,750
Why: The need to prioritise AI investment
Workday is “prioritising innovation investments like AI”, CEO Carl Eschenbach told staff in February as he sought to explain its decision to cut 1,750 roles.
Despite rocketing sales, (its 2024 revenues leapt 16% to $8.4bn) the cloud-based software vendor opted to eliminate what amounts to 8.5% of its workforce.
“Companies everywhere are reimagining how work gets done, and the increasing demand for AI has the potential to drive a new era of growth for Workday,” Eschenbach said in a letter reproduced in an SEC filing.
“This creates a massive opportunity for us, but we need to make some changes to better align our resources with our customers’ evolving needs. This means investing strategically, helping teams work better together, bringing innovations to market faster, and making it easier for our customers and partners to work with us.”
See next page for 2 more AI-related vendor downsizing moves…
