Snap is laying off 16 percent of its employees as it leans toward artificial intelligence

“My dear team,

Today we’re announcing changes that will impact nearly 1,000 Snap team members, including 16% of our full-time employees, as well as the closure of more than 300 open positions.

This is a very difficult decision, and I am deeply sorry to the colleagues who will be leaving us. You’ve made important contributions to Snap, and we’re committed to supporting you through this transformation. Last fall, Snap was described as facing a challenging moment, requiring a new way of working that is faster and more efficient, with a focus on profitable growth.

Over the past few months, we have carefully reviewed the work needed to better serve our community and partners, and made difficult choices to prioritize investments that we believe are most likely to create long-term value. As a result of these changes, we expect to reduce our annual cost base by more than $500 million by the second half of 2026, helping to create a clearer path to bottom-line profitability.

While these changes are necessary to realize Snap’s long-term potential, we believe that rapid advances in AI enable our teams to reduce repetitive work, increase speed, and better support our community, partners, and advertisers. We’ve already seen small teams leveraging AI tools to drive meaningful progress across several important initiatives, including Snapchat+, improved ad platform performance, and efficiency improvements to Snap Lite’s infrastructure.

If you are part of our North American team, please work from home today. In the US, affected team members will receive an email notification within the next hour, including information about next steps. For locations outside the US, you will receive additional details about next steps from leadership and HR.

To our departing colleagues: Thank you. Your hard work has helped shape Snap, and we’re so grateful for your contributions. For US-based team members who are leaving, we will provide four months of severance pay, health care coverage, and stock vesting, along with career transition support. Outside the United States, we will follow local processes and seek to provide similar support consistent with local standards.

To everyone who is continuing this journey: Change of this magnitude and speed is never easy and will never be smooth. We thank you for your resilience, compassion, and commitment to each other, to the community, and to the partners we serve. Our responsibility is to move forward with clarity, compassion, and determination as we build a faster, stronger, and more sustainable Snap over the long term.