# AI-Blamed Layoffs: Monday.com Becomes the 21st

> Monday.com becomes the 21st company to explicitly cite AI as the reason for mass layoffs in 2026, following a pattern that has now become an industry norm.

**URL:** https://www.ciptadusa.com/blog/phk-berdalih-ai-monday-com-ke-21-20260726  
**Type:** blog  
**Author:** PT Cipta Dua Saudara  
**Category:** Engineering  
**Published:** 2026-07-26  
**Cover:** https://cdn-uagents.enitip.com/uploads/blog/2026-07/daily-engineering-20260726-014627.jpg  

## Article

Something strange is happening in tech right now. Companies are posting record revenue from AI products — while cutting thousands of workers for the same reason: AI.

## Summary

Monday.com becomes the 21st company to explicitly cite AI as the reason for mass layoffs in 2026, following a pattern that has now become an industry norm.

## Background

The list keeps growing. Duolingo, Workday, Shopify, even UiPath — a company that sells automation — have all cut headcount with a similar narrative: AI makes certain roles unnecessary.

The pattern is consistent. A CEO sends an internal memo citing "AI efficiency" or "new productivity gains." Weeks later, hundreds lose their jobs. Stock price rises. The cycle repeats at the next company.

What makes this wave different from previous layoff cycles: the technical justification is harder to verify. When a company says "AI replaced our QA team," there is no public metric to confirm whether output quality remained equivalent — or whether this is simply an investor-friendly narrative.

## Implications

**Monday.com** cut approximately 150 positions — not large compared to Meta or Google. But the significance lies in precedent: this is a workplace productivity company that sells team collaboration tools. If the maker of work platforms says its own teams are oversized because of AI, what signal does the market receive?

Marc Andreessen stated: "Essentially, every large company is overstaffed... Now they all have the silver bullet excuse."

For engineering teams in Southeast Asia, the implications are direct. Multinationals conducting layoffs at HQ often restructure regional operations within 6-12 months. Local startups that follow Silicon Valley trends may adopt the same narrative — even when their scale and market context differ significantly.

More interesting: several companies on the list hired new AI engineer positions in the same week as the layoff announcement. This is not a net headcount reduction — it is workforce recomposition. Irrelevant skills are replaced, not eliminated.

## References

- [TechCrunch — Monday.com is the latest tech company to blame AI for layoffs](https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/25/the-running-list-major-tech-layoffs-in-2026-where-employers-cited-ai/)
- [Bloomberg — Tech Layoffs 2026 Tracker](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/tech-layoffs-2026/)

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*Markdown version of https://www.ciptadusa.com/blog/phk-berdalih-ai-monday-com-ke-21-20260726 — generated for AI agents and LLM crawlers.*