Pinterest has announced it will lay off around 15 per cent of its workforce as it is focusing heavily on artificial intelligence. The move marks the largest round of job cuts in the company’s history. The layoffs are expected to affect between 700 and 800 employees globally and form part of what the company describes as broader “transformation initiatives” aimed at prioritising AI-powered products and capabilities.
According to a recent securities filing, the layoffs at Pinterest will be completed by the end of the company’s third quarter, in late September. Alongside the workforce reductions, Pinterest is also planning to significantly scale back its office space as it shifts further towards a hybrid work model. The company said the move would help generate cost savings that can be reinvested into key growth areas.
“On January 26, 2026, the Company announced the board-approved global restructuring plan (the ‘Plan’) that includes a reduction in force that is expected to affect less than 15 per cent of the Company’s workforce, as well as office space reductions,” wrote Wanji Walcott, Pinterest’s chief legal and business affairs officer.
Pinterest has clarified that most of the job cuts will be concentrated in corporate and support roles, rather than product engineering or creative teams. The company said this approach would allow it to reallocate resources towards AI-focused roles and teams that can accelerate AI adoption and execution across the platform. The aim, it said, is to strengthen innovation as competition intensifies in the social media and digital advertising space.
Before the announcement, Pinterest had roughly 6,500 employees, although recent regulatory filings put the company’s headcount at about 4,666 at the end of 2024. As part of the restructuring, Pinterest will consolidate leased office spaces and reduce its overall office footprint. The company said affected employees will receive severance packages, extended healthcare benefits and outplacement support to help with the transition.
This is not the first time Pinterest has reduced its workforce. In 2023, the company cut around nine per cent of its staff.
Pinterest is also not alone in carrying out large-scale layoffs. Amazon on Wednesday, January 28, announced plans to cut 16,000 jobs globally, adding to the roughly 14,000 roles it had already eliminated over the past few months and taking the total number of recent job cuts to around 30,000. The reductions are largely focused on corporate roles. According to the company, the job cuts are part of a broader effort to streamline the organisation, roll back pandemic-era hiring and redirect resources towards priority areas such as artificial intelligence, even as the company continues to hire selectively in strategic functions.