AI advancements allow workers to reduce repetitive work and ‘increase velocity’, Spiegel said.

Snap is laying off 16pc of its workforce to cut costs and veer towards long-term profitability. The Snapchat parent company is cutting around 1,000 employees, including 300 open roles.

In a memo sent to employees today (15 April), company CEO Evan Spiegel said that Snap is prioritising investments with the potential for long-term growth. He said that AI advancements allow workers to reduce repetitive work and “increase velocity”.

The layoffs are expected to reduce the company’s annual costs by more than $500m by the second half of the year, according to Spiegel. Snap shares rose more than 7.75pc in pre-market trading, but have overall been down nearly 30pc since last year.

Snapchat, alongside other major social media platforms, has been under regulatory scrutiny over the past few years over issues surrounding child safety and access to content. The platform has been banned for those under 16 in Australia.

Snap last laid off 500 jobs in 2024. At the time, the company said that the layoffs would “reduce hierarchy and promote in-person collaboration”. Two years prior, it cut around 20pc of the company to improve business performance.

Spiegel is the latest in a growing list of company leaders linking layoffs to AI advancements. In his memo, he said small teams leveraging AI tools have already had a positive impact on Snap’s ad platform performance.

In February, Jack Dorsey cut 4,000 jobs at Block in preference for AI tools and flatter teams. Since then, Atlassian cut 10pc of its workforce, Meta laid off several hundred, and Oracle cut thousands, reportedly over AI.

Dorsey, at the time, said that a “majority of companies” will reach similar conclusions around smaller teams, and make similar structural changes “within the next year”.

Journalist Alex Heath, meanwhile, has reported that Snap’s $400m deal with Perplexity has also been axed.

Announced last November, the deal would have seen Perplexity deploy its conversational search tool into Snapchat. The one-year partnership was expected to rebrand Snapchat into a platform where AI companies could connect with the platform’s community.

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