AI Layoffs or AI Washing? What Monday.com Layoffs and Airtable Layoffs Really Say About AI Restructuring

By Ashkan Rajaee, Founder, TDZ Pro ( tdzpro.com )

"AI restructuring" has become the most powerful two-word phrase in tech. Say it in a layoff memo and the headline writes itself. Investors nod. Commentators argue. And almost nobody asks the next question.

Two recent cases make the point. Monday.com cut about 20% of its workforce. Bending Spoons is cutting a "large part" of Airtable weeks after buying it. Both got filed under "AI layoffs" in plenty of feeds this month. So I went and read what each company actually said.

Let me be clear up front. I'm not accusing these companies of misrepresenting anything. I'm saying that when AI is the frame, and the detail stops there, it begs the question. And the answer matters to a lot of people.

First, a correction to the news cycle. Monday.com's cut isn't new. It was announced on July 22, 2026, in an SEC filing that described a plan "to align the Company's organizational structure with its strategic focus on the AI Work Platform" and "support a leaner, more focused operating model." Some outlets recycled it as fresh news in October.

Here's the part that surprised me. The founders explicitly rejected the "AI took your job" reading. In their letter to staff, reported by The Times of Israel, Roy Mann and Eran Zinman wrote: "This decision was not made to reduce costs or replace people with AI." Ctech quotes them adding: "Improving margins was not the purpose of this decision."

They did give some specifics. A later filing says the majority of the cuts were "not in customer-facing roles." On the Q2 earnings call, leadership described "fewer management layers, smaller teams" and said most savings would be reinvested in "people, products, and AI."

So Monday.com's story is really about a strategy shift toward AI products and a flatter org. Fair enough. But "AI" still sits at the center of the announcement, and that's what most readers remember.

Bending Spoons didn't call it an AI layoff at all. Federico Simionato's post on X said the cut "is not a reflection of their work but a reflection of our deep belief that small teams ship more and better."

Then he listed what "better" looks like: a new Core team, "already 30+ shipped in 3 weeks," plus "Upgraded Omni, Airtable Canvas, a stronger MCP, and BYO agents." Airtable's own newsroom post says departing staff leave "with substantial separation packages" and credits a small "Speedy Squad" with more than 30 improvements.

That's a real number, and I respect that they shared it. But notice the shape of it. The stated reason is team size. The roadmap is AI features. Put them in one post and readers connect the dots themselves.

I looked for independent confirmation that AI took over the work these people were doing. Posts from affected employees, reporting from inside, analyst data, anything.

I didn't find it. To be precise: I found no independent source, from employees or otherwise, verifying that AI absorbed the eliminated work at either company. To be fair to both, neither company actually claimed that. Monday.com denied it outright.

That's the point. The "AI layoff" label is being applied by headlines, feeds and trackers more than by the evidence. And the companies, even the careful ones, rarely give enough detail to settle it.

This isn't just my hunch. An independent register at AI Layoffs found that of 259 AI-linked cuts it tracked, employers gave AI as the sole reason in only 23. In 64, only the press or others made the AI link. And Fortune reported on a Gartner survey of 350 executives finding that companies were cutting jobs whether or not their AI was actually generating returns.

When I was a partner helping grow a software consulting company from about $6 million to $60 million in under three years, headcount was never the real constraint. Clarity was. People can handle hard news. What they can't handle is a vague reason.

The people who stay. If the memo says AI, every remaining employee does the math. Am I next? Which part of my job is the model doing? Silence breeds the worst possible answer.

Your customers. Buyers read these memos too. If AI replaced a support team, they want to know who answers when the agent gets it wrong. If it didn't, say so.

The market's trust. Every unexplained "AI restructuring" makes the next one easier to dismiss. Eventually the phrase means nothing, and that hurts the companies doing real AI transformation most.

When I later founded and scaled a fully remote consultancy, we lived on written clarity. Remote teams don't run on hallway explanations. So here's the standard I'd hold any "AI restructuring" to:

None of this requires revealing trade secrets. It just requires treating employees, customers and investors like adults.

Monday.com and Bending Spoons both said more than most. One explicitly denied AI replacement. The other led with team size and shared a shipping metric. Credit where it's due.

But "AI" still did the heavy lifting in how these cuts were framed and received, and nobody outside these companies can yet say what the AI actually took over. Until leaders show their work, "AI restructuring" will keep sounding like a story, not a fact.

Leaders, you don't need a better phrase. You need better evidence.

This article reflects the author's personal opinion based on publicly available information as of the publish date. It is not a statement of fact about any company's internal decisions.