GitLab to Cut 14% of Workforce as Part of AI Pivot - WSJ

GitLab has announced it will lay off 350 employees — 14% of its workforce — via a restructuring it helpfully floated last month, in case anyone thought the decision was spontaneous. The company calls this an 'AI pivot', which is corporate speak for 'we're replacing the humans who built our product with a model that hallucinates merge requests'. Because nothing says 'developer tools revolution' quite like firing the developers who made your tools worth using.

GitLab's pivot is the latest in a proud tradition of tech companies discovering that AI is a marvellous excuse to cut costs while pretending to be visionary. The 350 people getting the boot? They're not being laid off; they're being 'realigned toward AI priorities', which apparently means their skills are no longer needed because a chatbot can now generate code that is, statistically, less buggy than theirs — or at least that's the bet. The restructuring was floated last month, which gave everyone just enough time to polish their CVs before the axe fell.

Yet another reminder that 'AI' is less a technological revolution than a cost-cutting memo that got a logo. GitLab's share price probably rose on the news, because investors love savings—especially when they come in human form. The irony is that GitLab's product is beloved by developers, and now they're telling those very developers they're surplus to requirements. But hey, the AI pivot is the future, and the future has a 14% smaller headcount. Cheers to progress—just don't read the fine print.