Cambridge, Massachusetts-based technology company HubSpot announced plans to lay off about 600 employees, or 7% of its workforce, as the company pivots to a new AI-focused strategy.
CEO Yamini Rangan shared the news in a letter to employees, writing, “Over the past year, we have shifted our strategy from building software that helps customers grow to delivering outcomes for them with AI. That shift is transforming product, pricing and how we serve our customers.”
“We need to move faster,” Rangan said, announcing organizational changes that include fewer layers of management. She also said the layoffs were neither “simply a cost-cutting exercise” nor driven by AI-related efficiencies.
“We believe in a world where AI helps make us more productive and we will continue to invest to make that happen,” she said. “This change is about aligning our organization with our strategy and how we need to operate going forward.”
READ: Amazon layoffs: Employees receive ‘priority meeting’ emails as job cuts hit (October 8, 2026)
Employees will receive 20 weeks of base pay, plus one week per year of service, up to a maximum of 30 weeks, in severance. They will also receive five months of health care benefits and career support.
“This is not simply a cost-cutting exercise,” Rangan said in the message to employees. “We have been thoughtful about how we invest in AI while balancing growth and profitability. We have been disciplined about growing headcount slower than revenue, and we will continue to do so.”
She added that while the changes prioritize putting more resources behind the “biggest opportunities,” implementing the plan was still difficult.
HubSpot said in its August earnings report that revenue rose 20% to nearly $912 million in the second quarter. Rangan said the company had “made deliberate choices to accelerate our AI transformation.”
READ: Workday to cut 2.5% of workforce, affecting about 525 employees (September 30, 2026)
“The AI shift unlocks a much larger opportunity for HubSpot, and I’m confident these choices position us to drive long-term, compounding growth,” she said at the time.
The HubSpot job cuts came ahead of Amazon’s announcement of another round of “small” job cuts Wednesday U.S. time, affecting fewer than 1,000 corporate employees, according to Reuters and Business Insider reports citing company spokespersons.
According to real-time layoff-tracking website Layoffs.fyi, 131,382 technology employees have been laid off across 315 technology companies as of this week. Several companies have cited an “AI-first” approach as a major factor behind layoffs.