Atlassian is laying off 1,600 employees as part of its latest shift to AI

Australian software giant Atlassian will cut around 1,600 jobs in a major restructuring as artificial intelligence comes to the fore.

The company said about 10% of its jobs will be eliminated. The global workforce is around 16,000 people.

CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes sent an email to all employees 20 minutes before notifying those who had lost their jobs, saying: “I have made the incredibly difficult decision to reduce the size of our team by approximately 10%.”

“We are doing this to self-fund further investments in AI and corporate sales while strengthening our financial profile. We are also changing the way we work and organizing around our work system to move faster,” he told them.

Cannon-Brookes said “things have changed in the age of AI.”