Website builder joins Meta, Cisco and Intuit as AI-driven layoffs surpass 134,000 U.S. tech jobs this year
Website builder Wix.com Ltd. announced on Thursday that it is eliminating roughly 20% of its global workforce — approximately 1,000 positions — becoming the latest technology company to cite artificial intelligence as a central driver of mass job cuts in an accelerating trend reshaping America’s labor market.
The move places Wix alongside Meta, Cisco, Intuit, and Groupon in a wave of corporate restructurings that have now eliminated more than 134,000 tech jobs across 212 layoff events so far in 2026, according to real-time tracking data from Skillsyncer. The majority of those cuts have been tied to AI adoption, as companies replace roles in content creation, customer support, data entry, and basic coding with automated systems — a shift that is forcing HR executives to rethink workforce planning at unprecedented speed.
A double pressure on headcount
In a public statement posted simultaneously to X and LinkedIn on Thursday, Wix CEO and co-founder Avishai Abrahami identified two converging forces driving the decision. Because Wix collects revenue predominantly in dollars while its largest employee base — more than 60% of its 5,277 staff as of the first quarter of 2026 — draws salaries in Israeli shekels, the currency’s appreciation has quietly inflated the company’s cost base in ways that cannot be engineered away, as Quartz first reported. The shekel gained approximately 14% against the dollar over the course of 2025 and has added another 7% through the first five months of 2026, according to The Next Web.
The second force is structural. Abrahami framed the AI transition as the most significant shift in how companies are built since the invention of modern programming languages in the 1970s, describing it not merely as the adoption of new tools but as a fundamental rewiring of how companies think, manage, and operate. The cuts follow a difficult first-quarter 2026 earnings report on May 13 in which Wix posted revenue of $541.2 million, falling short of analyst estimates of $543.6 million, while swinging to a net loss of $57.5 million, per The Next Web.
Once restructuring is complete, Wix’s total workforce is expected to settle at around 4,200. Those losing their jobs will be reached out to individually and given what Abrahami described as personally tailored severance arrangements.
The HR challenge hiding inside the AI narrative
Wix's announcement cuts to a tension that people executives can no longer sidestep: when AI is cited as a reason for mass layoffs, how much of that is genuine transformation and how much is cover for cost-cutting that would have happened regardless?
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed this directly, stating that there is some “AI washing” happening — where companies are blaming AI for layoffs they would have made anyway — alongside genuine displacement of workers by automation. Cognizant Chief AI Officer Babak Hodjat has similarly cautioned that it will take more than a year before the full workforce impact of modern AI technologies becomes clear, according to reporting by Tom’s Hardware citing Nikkei Asia.
The distinction matters for people teams. Organizations citing AI as the rationale for cuts face growing regulatory scrutiny. The bipartisan AI Workforce PREPARE Act, introduced in the U.S. Senate, would amend the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act to require companies to specify when AI was a substantial factor in a mass layoff, name the AI systems used, estimate the percentage of job losses attributable to them, and describe any retraining steps taken before cuts were made, as Tech Times reported. A companion measure in the House — the No Robot Bosses Act — would require human oversight and disclosure whenever AI tools are used in employment decisions. Neither has yet passed.
In the meantime, states are moving faster. Colorado’s Artificial Intelligence Act takes effect June 30, 2026, requiring employers to use reasonable care to protect against “algorithmic discrimination” in employment decisions. HR executives in Colorado and beyond will need to audit their AI-driven workforce decisions ahead of that deadline.
What restructuring for AI actually looks like
At Wix, the restructuring goes beyond a headcount reduction. The company is collapsing its management layers to accelerate decision-making and has begun staffing a new category of role it calls xEngineer, a position conceived from scratch for employees whose work is centered on AI-native tools. It is a model that other HR functions are watching closely as they determine which roles survive automation, which are redesigned around it, and which disappear entirely.
The broader numbers are stark. From January through April 2026, 78,557 workers in the tech industry were laid off, with more than 76% of affected positions located in the United States. Of those, 47.9% of cuts were attributed to reduced need for human workers because of AI and workflow automation, according to data reported by Nikkei Asia.
In the first quarter of 2026 alone, U.S.-based employers announced 217,362 total job cuts. Artificial intelligence led all stated reasons for cuts in March, accounting for 15,341 announced positions, representing 25% of that month’s total, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas.
HR executives navigating mass layoffs can find practical guidance on workforce transition planning and people strategy at HRD America, where coverage of AI’s impact on talent management is updated daily. For broader workforce trends, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Rapid Response program provides federally-funded support services for organizations managing large-scale workforce reductions, a resource likely to see increasing demand as the year progresses.
Wix’s stock has shed nearly 50% of its value since January 2026, with the company’s market capitalization falling to approximately $2 billion, a fraction of the $20 billion valuation it commanded at its 2021 peak, per The Next Web. Whether the restructuring produces the operational speed Abrahami is seeking will be a closely watched test case for how technology companies are using AI not just to build products, but to rebuild themselves.
