Intuit Fires 1800 People For "AI-Native"

Intuit is laying off about 1,800 employees—roughly 10% of its global workforce—while framing the move as an “AI-native” transformation rather than a cost-cutting exercise. CEO Sasan Garzi says the company will shift investment toward priority areas in AI and generative AI, reimagine products around AI-native experiences, and strengthen growth in areas like money movement, mid-market expansion for small businesses, and international growth. The company also plans to hire about 1,800 new employees with “strategic functional skill sets,” mainly in engineering, product, and customer-facing roles, signaling a headcount reshuffle rather than a pure reduction.

The layoffs come with a detailed justification that includes performance management outcomes: departing employees include about 1,500 who are “not meeting expectations” under a formal performance management process. Additional reductions include executive and leadership consolidation—Intuit says it will reduce certain executive roles and responsibilities by about 10%—and the elimination of more than 300 roles across the company to streamline work and reallocate resources toward growth areas. Intuit is also consolidating around 80 tech roles to locations where technology teams are expanding, including Atlanta, Bangalore, New York, Tel Aviv, and Toronto, while closing two sites with more than 250 employees each in Edmonton and Boise.

Despite the “not a cost cut” message, the scale and speed of the restructuring drew skepticism in the commentary around the announcement. The central criticism is that a transformation tied to AI—especially one that triggers layoffs of this magnitude—should have been planned with more lead time, rather than executed as an abrupt pivot. The transcript’s reaction also questions whether the company’s internal performance process could realistically identify so many underperformers at once, implying managerial and strategic shortcomings.

On the practical side, Intuit’s severance package appears comparatively generous for many affected workers. U.S. employees leaving the company will receive at least 16 weeks of pay, plus two additional weeks for every year of service, with a 60-day window before departure. The timing is also designed to help employees reach key benefits milestones, including July vesting dates for restricted stock units and a July 31 eligibility date for annual bonuses. Employees outside the U.S. receive similar support adjusted for local requirements.

Financial context is used to bolster the transformation narrative: Intuit reported $14.4 billion in revenue for fiscal 2023, and $6.7 billion in revenue up 12% (as cited in the transcript), alongside a Fortune 500 ranking improvement. Still, the tension remains between the “AI-native” branding and the human impact of a large workforce reduction. The overall takeaway is a classic corporate tradeoff: a company betting heavily on generative AI and product redesign while simultaneously restructuring headcount, locations, and leadership—then cushioning the blow with severance and benefit timing that may soften the fallout even as questions about strategy and execution linger.