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Replit, a startup that provides a cloud-based platform for software development, has laid off 30 employees, according to an email sent by CEO Amjad Masad to the company’s staff on Tuesday. The layoffs come as Replit aggressively pivots towards artificial intelligence to power its coding tools.
“We decided to part ways with 30 of our exceptional colleagues,” Masad wrote in the email, which he shared publicly in a post on X.com. “This was a difficult decision, but one we felt was necessary to ensure the long-term success of our company and our mission.”
The layoffs are a stark reminder of the high stakes and rapid changes in the world of AI-powered software development. Replit, which has raised over $120 million and boasts 20 million users, is betting big that AI can revolutionize the way code is written. But that bet comes at a human cost.
AI at the core of Replit’s strategy
In his email, Masad outlined an ambitious plan to infuse AI into every aspect of Replit’s coding platform. “We are not in the business of selling AI,” he wrote. “We are in the business of selling a dream, which is to make your dream software more accessible and make programming more accessible.”
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Central to that plan is an AI-powered code completion tool called Ghostwriter, which Replit made available to all users and rebranded simply as “Replit AI“.
“We think that AI needs to be really infused in every programming interaction that you have and it needs to be part of the default experience in Replit,” Masad wrote.
But even as Replit doubles down on AI, the company is trimming its workforce. The 30 layoffs represent a significant portion of Replit’s staff, which is estimated to be around 180 employees based on data from LinkedIn.
Masad did not specify which departments or roles were affected by the layoffs, but he promised that the company would “do everything we can to support them in their transition.”
The cuts at Replit reflect a wider trend in the tech industry, where even well-funded startups are tightening their belts in response to economic uncertainty and the high costs of developing AI systems. Just last year, GitHub, one of Replit’s main competitors, laid off 10% of its workforce.
