Wednesday 20 May 2026 4:15 pm
Bolt has since replaced its HR division with a smaller "people operations" team
US fintech Bolt has become the latest company to openly link job cuts and restructuring to AI, after chief executive Ryan Breslow defended scrapping the firm’s HR department during a recent round of layoffs.Speaking at a Fortune event Breslow said Bolt’s HR function had become counterproductive as the company attempted to streamline operations.“We had an HR team, and that HR team was creating problems that didn’t exist,” he said. “Those problems disappeared when I let them go.”Bolt, which develops checkout software for online retailers, cut roughly 30 per cent of its workforce in April. The company said fewer than 40 staff were affected.The layoffs form part of a broader effort to make the business “leaner and more AI-centric”, according to internal messages reported in the US.Bolt has since replaced its HR division with a smaller “people operations” team focused on employee support and training.Breslow, who returned as chief executive this year after stepping down in 2022, said the company had become inefficient during years of rapid growth.“There’s a sense of entitlement that had festered across the company,” he said, in comments first reported by The Times.Bolt’s valuation reportedly fell from $11bn in 2022 to around $300m last year, according to The Information.Banks and tech firms increasingly tie cuts to AIFirms globally are becoming more explicit about linking workforce reductions to AI investment and automation.Standard Chartered this week announced plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs by 2030 as it automates parts of its operations. Chief executive Bill Winters said the bank would replace some “lower-value human capital” with investment in the technology.HSBC boss Georges Elhedery also told staff this week that generative AI would “destroy certain jobs” while creating others.Meanwhile, Meta is carrying out another major restructuring centred around AI, with thousands of staff being reassigned into AI-focused divisions while redundancies continue across engineering and product teams.Separate figures from Challenger, Gray & Christmas show more than 50,000 tech jobs have already been cut in 2026, with AI increasingly cited as a contributing factor behind layoffs.Companies including Amazon, Snap, Oracle and Block have all announced further reductions this year while simultaneously increasing spending on AI infrastructure and automation.
