Amdocs layoffs mark a turning point in “making AI an integral part of DNA”
As the company launches its GenAI & Data division, hundreds of employees in Israel and abroad face job cuts, underscoring how artificial intelligence is reshaping work at one of the world’s largest telecom software firms.
For years, workforce cuts at Amdocs have been framed as “fine tuning”, a quiet trimming of underperformers or a recalibration to protect margins. This time, the company is openly confronting a very different catalyst, the accelerating adoption of generative artificial intelligence.
On Monday, Amdocs unveiled its new GenAI & Data division, a group two years in the making, tasked with integrating AI into every corner of the company. The announcement came alongside preparations for a fresh round of layoffs expected to affect hundreds of employees in Israel and abroad.
Until recently, companies avoided saying the quiet part out loud, that AI was replacing people. “We are laying off employees because GenAI is changing our world” is a statement that would have sounded like science fiction in boardrooms only a few years ago. But as Microsoft’s CEO has acknowledged, even while shedding 9,000 workers during peak profitability, the once-sacred assumption that “successful companies always hire more people” no longer holds.
Other tech firms have followed similar trajectories. Israeli transcription firm Verbit let go of staff after clients switched to cheaper AI translation tools. Marketing unicorn Yotpo cut more than 200 jobs, selling off operations made irrelevant by machine learning advances.
For Amdocs, the exact number of forthcoming cuts remains undisclosed. The company’s reticence underscores an uncomfortable truth, it knows AI will reshape its workforce but can’t yet predict the full scale.
The new division will be led by Ilan Sade, Senior Vice President, who framed the launch as a strategic turning point: “We established the new division with the strategic intention of making artificial intelligence an integral part of Amdocs’ DNA… Our journey began two years ago, and now we are deepening our commitment and positioning ourselves as global market leaders in the field.”
Earlier this year, Inbar Mark, Head of HR Israel at Amdocs, told CTech: “Our focus has been on leveraging AI as a powerful tool to augment and empower our workforce. We view AI tools not as a replacement for human talent, but as a powerful enabler that enhances our capabilities across the board.”
While the GenAI & Data unit will consolidate Amdocs’ product, engineering, strategy, and go-to-market teams, it also signals an era where automation could shrink or entirely replace traditional roles. As the company has demonstrated in Macedonia and South Africa, delivering cloud-based telecom solutions to millions, AI is no longer an add-on to existing services, but a core operational driver.
Amdocs is no stranger to restructuring. In 2023, it eliminated 2,700 roles in two rounds, with 12% of Israeli staff affected. In 2024 alone, a further 1,500 positions were shed. The latest reduction would add to that tally, leaving many to question how far, and how fast, AI adoption will reshape the company’s 29,000-strong workforce.
For employees, the question is no longer whether AI will change their jobs, but whether their jobs will survive at all. For Amdocs, the gamble is whether these technological gains will outpace the disruption they cause.
