Pinterest layoff bombshell exposes brutal reality of AI apocalypse | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

It may be delayed for some of us, but the AI jobs destruction apocalypse is hitting the tech industry hard, including Pinterest.

Of the 244,851 global layoffs in 2025, nearly 70,000, or about 30%, were AI-related, according to Digital Journal, citing information from forex broker data firm RationalFX.

But despite what many headlines say about recent layoffs, artificial intelligence isn’t to blame for every job loss.

Amazon, which announced this week that it is laying off another 16,000 employees, laid off 14,000 workers last year amid a widespread corporate restructuring. While CEO Andy Jassy recently clarified that the layoffs were financially driven, not AI-related, that hasn’t stopped the media from tying the two together.

The New York Post’s headline reads “Amazon axes 16000 more jobs as companies keep replacing workers with AI.”

“Amazon is laying off 16000 employees as AI battle intensifies,” CNN said.

And Reuters ran with “Amazon axes 16000 jobs as it pushes AI and efficiency.”

Meanwhile, Jassy said specifically in Amazon’s third-quarter earnings call that its layoffs were “not really financially driven and it’s not even really AI-driven… It’s culture.”

Amazon overhired during the pandemic, and now the company says its corporate class is bloated. Meanwhile, Jassy says, “It’s important to be lean. It’s important to be flat.”

Still, there are other tech companies for which AI is costing jobs.

Pinterest, the image-based social media platform that lets users share and shop for their favorite consumer products, is cutting just under 15% of its workforce due to artificial intelligence.

Pinterest says job cuts will help it reallocate resources to AI-focused roles.

Shutterstock

Pinterest cuts hundreds of jobs due to AI

On Tuesday, Jan. 27, Pinterest announced plans to lay off less than 15% of its workforce of about 5,200 employees, reported the Associated Press.

The move will cost the company between $35 million and $45 million, according to an 8-K filing this week.

Pinterest says the lowered long-term costs will help support its “transformation initiatives,” including “reallocating resources to AI-focused roles and teams that drive AI adoption and execution, prioritizing AI-powered products and capabilities, and accelerating the transformation of its sales and go-to-market approach.”

Unlike Amazon, Pinterest is saying out loud that this move is AI-driven, AI-benefiting, and AI-minded. The company plans to shrink its physical footprint as part of its workforce reduction, saving money on real estate costs.

“Our AI investments are elevating our visual search capabilities and the relevance of our shopping recommendations,” CEO William Ready said during the company’s third-quarter earnings report.

The company said investing in its headcount to support its AI was responsible for the 15% year-over-year increase in non-GAAP operating expenses of $543 million.

Pinterest said it plans to complete the restructuring by the end of the third quarter on Sept. 30.

Pinterest shares were down 3.4% to $22.62 in afternoon trading Wednesday, Jan. 28.

Amazon layoffs coming to AWS, leaked email shows

Just because Amazon says its job cuts aren’t AI-related doesn’t mean job cuts aren’t coming to AI developers as well.

This week, Amazon mistakenly sent a layoff notice out to the Amazon Web Services cloud computing team before it was supposed to.

Now read:118-year-old shipping giant just delivered workers a harsh message

The layoffs, apparently planned for the morning of Jan. 28, according to the email viewed by Reuters, are part of an initiative the company is calling “Project Dawn.”

“Changes like this are hard on everyone. These decisions are difficult and are made thoughtfully as we position our organization and AWS for future success,” the letter from Colleen Aubrey, senior VP of applied AI solutions at AWS, says.

Amazon plans to lay off about 30,00 people during its current round of culling, with 14,000 employees being terminated last October and the rest starting to be let go this week.