Maya Developer Autodesk Continues to Fire People to Invest in AI
Around 1,000 people, 7% of the company's total workforce, have been affected this time.
Almost exactly 11 months after carrying out its previous round of job cuts, Autodesk – the creator and owner of Maya, 3ds Max, Fusion 360, AutoCAD, and a slew of other 3D programs – has seemingly decided that a good tale is none the worse for being told twice, initiating yet another wave of layoffs.
Cheng Xin/Getty
In his version of the typical "it was a very difficult decision for us" statement announcing the terminations, Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost said the company would reduce its workforce by roughly 7% – slightly below 2025's 9%, but still totaling around 1,000 workers. He added that customer-facing sales teams would be hit the hardest, giving us hope that core software development departments may have weathered this storm unscathed.
As for the reasons behind the firings, they follow a familiar theme of déjà vu, being virtually identical to those outlined a year ago: optimization of Autodesk's go-to-market model, strengthening the company's corporate functions, and last – and certainly most annoying of all – increasing investment in AI and cloud initiatives.
Despite the two rounds of eliminations occurring almost exactly a year apart, being justified by the same reasoning, and impacting a roughly similar share of the workforce, the CEO insists that this will not become an annual tradition at Autodesk and that the changes are not driven by an effort to replace people with AI.
"I recognize the weight of this news, particularly as it follows the organizational changes we made last year," Anagnost wrote. "I want to be clear that this will not become an annual process at Autodesk, and these changes are not driven by the external environment or an effort to replace people with AI. We remain steadfast in our belief that technology is only as powerful as the people who use it, and humans will always be the most important part of the equation."
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