Hundreds face layoffs as Amdocs centralizes AI in new division
GenAI & Data unit aims to make artificial intelligence part of the company’s DNA.
Almost every year, Amdocs trims its workforce. Often, these layoffs are described as “fine tuning”, letting go of employees with lower performance scores compared to their peers, or cutting roles to protect profitability.
This time, the driver is different, and not entirely surprising: the GenAI revolution. On Monday, Amdocs announced the creation of a new division dedicated to implementing AI company-wide. At the same time, Calcalist has learned the company is preparing for a new wave of layoffs, expected to affect hundreds of employees.
Until recently, few companies dared to openly admit: “We are laying off employees because GenAI is changing our world.” But now, more and more are saying it out loud. Microsoft, for example, declared that the notion “successful companies always hire more people” is outdated, even as it laid off 9,000 employees during a peak performance period.
Other companies are making similar moves. Verbit laid off dozens of staff after customers found cheaper AI-based translation tools. Israeli unicorn Yotpo quickly shifted focus to AI, selling two no-longer-relevant operations and laying off over 200 employees.
Now it’s Amdocs’ turn. While it hasn’t officially confirmed layoffs, the unveiling of the new GenAI & Data division, in development for the past two years, is accompanied by internal preparations for significant workforce cuts.
It’s no accident Amdocs is staying quiet about the numbers. The company knows AI will reshape its workforce but can’t yet gauge the full impact. According to Ilan Sade, Senior Vice President and head of the new division: “We established the new division with the strategic intention of making artificial intelligence an integral part of Amdocs’ DNA. Our goal is to integrate GenAI capabilities into every product, service, and process, driving new growth for Amdocs and our customers. Our journey began two years ago, and now we are deepening our commitment and positioning ourselves as global market leaders in the field.”
What we’re seeing today is only the tip of the iceberg for AI adoption in tech. Over the next few years, entire departments could be replaced or dramatically reduced, with AI agents performing the work of hundreds of employees around the clock.
Amdocs remains a large organization, employing about 29,000 people worldwide in 2024, including 5,000 in Israel. In the past five years, it has run several layoff rounds. In 2023, it cut about 2,700 positions in two rounds (12% in Israel). The first wave affected 700 employees (100 in Israel), while the second wave saw 2,000 more let go (200 in Israel). In 2024, Amdocs laid off an additional 1,500 employees.
The new GenAI & Data division will combine Amdocs’ product, engineering, strategy, and go-to-market teams under one roof. The move is driven by market demand, with examples such as an AI project in Macedonia, which delivered leading billing, collection, and product catalog solutions, and the Telkom South Africa migration of 25 million subscribers to a cloud-based platform. Amdocs hopes to merge its existing capabilities with AI innovation to fuel its next stage of growth.
