Oracle says AI helped drive layoffs of 21,000 employees
Restructuring cost the company $1.8 billion as it streamlined operations.
Tech giant Oracle cut 21,000 jobs last year, partly due to the deployment of AI technologies, according to the company’s latest annual report. The cuts represent approximately 13% of Oracle’s workforce, which stood at 162,000 employees at the end of May 2025.
"The adoption and deployment of AI technologies across our operations have resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce," Oracle said Monday in an annual financial regulatory filing. According to Oracle, the layoffs resulted in restructuring costs of approximately $1.8 billion.
In relative terms, the largest reduction occurred in Oracle’s hardware division, which lost about one-third of its workforce, or roughly 1,000 employees. In absolute numbers, however, the deepest cuts were made in research and development, where 7,000 jobs were eliminated, representing 14% of the division’s workforce.
Sales and marketing also saw significant reductions, with 6,000 positions cut, or 19.4% of employees in those functions. Oracle’s cloud and services businesses each lost around 3,000 employees, representing 10.3% and 8.1% of their respective workforces. The company also reduced its administrative staff by approximately 1,000 employees, or 8.3%.
Geographically, Oracle cut 9,000 jobs in the United States, representing 15.5% of its U.S. workforce, and 12,000 jobs internationally, or 11.5% of its overseas workforce.
In recent years, several technology companies have linked workforce reductions to the rise of AI. Salesforce said it reduced its customer service workforce from 9,000 employees to 5,000 following the integration of AI agents. Meta cut roughly 8,000 jobs, about 10% of its workforce, as part of a broader effort to streamline operations while increasing investment in AI. Israeli company Fiverr also laid off about 30% of its workforce, roughly 250 employees, as part of a shift toward an “AI-first” operating model.
Oracle’s workforce reduction appears to be among the largest publicly disclosed layoffs attributed, at least in part, to productivity gains from AI adoption.
The company is one of the leading players in AI infrastructure and plans to invest $50 billion this year in data centers and related infrastructure. Unlike cloud rivals such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, Oracle does not develop its own frontier AI models. Instead, it focuses on providing computing infrastructure and cloud services to technology companies and AI developers building those models.
Among other initiatives, Oracle is partnering with OpenAI on the ambitious Stargate project.
