Intuit — the parent company of TurboTax, Credit Karma and QuickBooks — cut roughly 17% of its workforce on Wednesday, but CEO Sasan Goodarzi said the layoffs were designed to streamline operations and improve execution rather than replace workers with artificial intelligence.

"None of it had to do with AI," Goodarzi told CNBC's Jim Cramer on "Mad Money." "Everything was about how do we become more effective."

Intuit's job cuts come amid concerns that advances in generative AI could lead to major spikes in unemployment, particularly in the tech industry. As of this week, 114,173 tech workers have been laid off so far in 2026, according to Layoffs.fyi. Companies including Microsoft, Meta and Amazon have all announced thousands of layoffs this year while simultaneously ramping up investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure and products.

For Intuit, Goodarzi said the workforce reduction was part of a broader effort to simplify Intuit's organizational structure and create what he described as a faster-moving "builder culture."

"That really led us to three areas that drove the reduction in the workforce," he said.

According to Goodarzi, the layoffs allowed Intuit to reduce management layers, eliminate "coordination-heavy roles" tied to operational complexity, and remove duplicative functions after integrating Credit Karma and TurboTax more closely together.

The comments come as investors increasingly debate whether generative AI tools from companies like OpenAI and Anthropic could disrupt traditional software businesses. Shares of Intuit have fallen roughly 41% this year.

Goodarzi pushed back on the idea that artificial intelligence poses a near-term threat to Intuit's core business.

"People spend seven times more on tax and accounting experts as they do on software, because people don't buy code, they buy confidence," he said.

Goodarzi also argued large language models alone are unlikely to replace Intuit's platform for high-stakes financial tasks.

"Accuracy, compliance, being audited for these high-stakes decisions is why people use us," he said. "LLMs are not the place where people rely on to do their taxes and to run their business."

Intuit reported quarterly earnings Wednesday after the close, posting revenue of $8.56 billion, slightly ahead of analysts' estimates of $8.54 billion, while adjusted earnings per share of $12.80 topped consensus expectations of $12.57.