Snap has become the latest tech company to announce sweeping layoffs.
In a memo to employees released in a regulatory filing on Wednesday, CEO Evan Spiegel said Snap would cut 1,000 employees, about 16% of its global workforce, citing “rapid advancements” in AI and “small squads” using the technology to be more efficient.
“While these changes are necessary to realize Snap’s long-term potential, we believe that rapid advancements in artificial intelligence enable our teams to reduce repetitive work, increase velocity, and better support our community, partners, and advertisers,” Spiegel wrote.
The Snap CEO said the company would also close more than 300 open roles, and that US-based employees would receive four months of severance, healthcare coverage, and equity vesting. Spiegel also wrote that employees based in North America should work from home on Wednesday.
Snap joins a wave of tech companies cutting staff this year. Oracle and Meta announced layoffs last month, while Amazon slashed 16,000 corporate roles in January, citing a need to chop bureaucracy. In some cases, leaders are citing AI. The CEOs of Atlassian and Block both said AI was changing the needs of their workforce when they trimmed staff earlier this year.
In an investor update included in Snap’s regulatory filing, the company said the layoffs would result in estimated annualized cost savings of $500 million.
“Snap faces a crucible moment — squeezed between giants with enormous resources and nimble startups moving fast,” the company wrote in the investor presentation. “To meet this moment, we are pivoting toward profitable growth.”
Snap said this new strategy would include scaling its subscription business and higher-margin ad placements.
The company said it also plans to transform its internal business model to spread critical work across both human teams and “increasingly capable AI agents.” Under Snap’s new operating model, at least 65% of new code was generated by AI, the company said in its investor presentation.
Read Spiegel’s memo below:
Dear Team, Today we are announcing changes that will impact approximately 1,000 team members at Snap, including 16% of our full time employees, in addition to closing more than 300 open roles. This is an incredibly difficult decision, and I am deeply sorry to the colleagues who will be leaving us. You have made important contributions to Snap, and we are committed to supporting you through this transition. Last fall, I described Snap as facing a crucible moment, requiring a new way of working that is faster and more efficient, while pivoting towards profitable growth. Over the past several months, we have carefully reviewed the work required to best serve our community and partners, and made tough choices to prioritize the investments we believe are most likely to create long-term value. As a result of these changes, we expect to reduce our annualized cost base by more than $500 million by the second half of 2026, helping to establish a clearer path to net-income profitability. While these changes are necessary to realize Snap’s long-term potential, we believe that rapid advancements in artificial intelligence enable our teams to reduce repetitive work, increase velocity, and better support our community, partners, and advertisers. We have already witnessed small squads leveraging AI tools to drive meaningful progress across several important initiatives, including Snapchat+, enhanced ad platform performance, and efficiency improvements in our Snap Lite infrastructure. If you are part of our North America team, please work from home today. In the US, impacted team members will receive an email notification within the next hour, including information about next steps. For non-US locations, you will receive additional details about next steps from leadership and HR. To our departing colleagues: thank you. Your hard work has helped shape Snap, and we are deeply grateful for your contributions. For U.S.-based team members who are leaving, we will provide four months of severance, healthcare coverage, and equity vesting, along with career transition support. Outside the U.S., we will follow local processes and seek to provide comparable support aligned with local norms. To everyone continuing on this journey: change of this magnitude and at this speed is never easy and it will not be seamless. Thank you for your resilience, compassion, and commitment to one another, and to the community and partners we serve. Our responsibility is to move forward with clarity, empathy, and determination as we build a faster, stronger, and more durable Snap for the long term. Evan
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