Website development company Wix (WIX.US) struggles to survive in the AI boom! After a financial report disaster, they announce a 20% layoff.

The website development company Wix.com (WIX.US) is preparing to lay off approximately 1000 positions in the coming months, accounting for about 20% of its total workforce. This will be the largest round of layoffs in the company's history. A week before this announcement, Wix released its first quarter financial report, which fell far short of market expectations, leading to a one-third drop in its stock price on the following trading day. The report showed that in the first quarter of the fiscal year 2026, Wix's revenue increased by 14% year-on-year to $541 million, lower than analysts' average expectation by $2.87 million; adjusted earnings per share were $0.68, lower than analysts' average expectation by $0.54. This is the latest negative news that Wix has encountered recently. Against the backdrop of increasing concerns in the market about the risk of "artificial intelligence (AI) disruption," the company's stock price has plummeted by nearly 50% since the beginning of this year. Analyst Ten Cent Capital stated, "When it comes to AI, some things are almost certain, and basic web design is clearly one of the easiest areas to be disrupted. With just a $20 subscription to Claude, you can create a fully functional custom website, which in the past often required spending thousands of dollars, as well as weeks or even months." The analyst also pointed out, "Base44, the 'vibecoding' tool acquired by Wix for $80 million, has shown extremely strong Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) performance, with ARR soaring from $59 million at the end of 2025 to $150 million. Such explosive growth does exist, but the problem lies in the fact that Wix has distorted reality, packaging Base44 as its own moat, when in fact, it is just another AI competitor." In fact, as early as last year, Bank of America Corp strategist listed 26 companies that are most at risk from the impact of AI, and Wix was one of them. The company's stock price had already fallen by over 51% in 2025. In addition to Wix, the tax and financial software manufacturer Intuit Inc. (INTU.US) is another technology company that has announced large-scale layoffs in the midst of the AI boom. The company announced last Wednesday that it would lay off 17% of its full-time employees. Based on Intuit Inc.'s last reported total of 18,200 employees, this layoff will affect over 3,000 people. Intuit Inc., which produces QuickBooks and TurboTax, has suffered a heavy blow in its stock price this year, in line with the overall downward trend in the software sector. Data shows that Intuit Inc.'s stock price has fallen by over 50% so far this year, while the S&P 500 index has risen by over 9% in the same period. Furthermore, ZoomInfo (GTM.US) and content delivery network provider Cloudflare (NET.US) announced earlier this month that they would each lay off 20% of their workforce. Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO.US) stated this month that it would cut nearly 4,000 positions this quarter, accounting for less than 5% of its total workforce. Large technology companies are also advancing with layoffs, albeit more due to streamline costs to invest more self-funds into the AI field. Meta (META.US) has officially begun its plan to lay off 8,000 employees globally, accounting for 10% of its global workforce. In a memo sent to employees on April 23, Meta stated that it plans to cut 10% of its staff to improve efficiency and make up for the company's high spending on artificial intelligence. Meta is not alone. Microsoft Corporation (MSFT.US) recently launched its first voluntary employee exit program in its 51-year history, targeting U.S. employees with a combined age and tenure of 70 years or more, approximately 7% of U.S. employees are eligible, potentially affecting about 9,000 people. Microsoft Corporation had already laid off over 15,000 people in 2025. Meanwhile, its subsidiary LinkedIn announced another round of layoffs, about 5%, affecting nearly 900 people in engineering, product, and marketing teams, even though the company's latest quarterly revenue recorded a 12% year-on-year increase. Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN.US) is taking a more aggressive approach in its AI transformation. Since the beginning of 2025, Amazon.com, Inc. has laid off over 30,000 corporate employees, with layoffs mainly focused on non-core business units, while frontline positions such as e-commerce delivery and AWS cloud services remain unaffected. Alongside the layoffs, Amazon.com, Inc. requires employees to follow an "AI-first" approach in almost all work processes such as coding, product design, supply chain analysis, and plans to invest around $200 billion in building AI infrastructure in 2026. However, this strong push for pace has sparked internal backlash according to internal feedback from employees, immature AI tools have increased the workload of manual error correction. According to Layoffs.fyi statistics, as of 2026, the number of layoffs in the global tech industry has exceeded 103,000 people, approaching the level of approximately 124,000 people for the entire year of 2025. In the first quarter of 2026, the tech industry layoffs storm, driven by productivity tools impact and Wall Street pressure, accelerating the shift from labor-intensive operations to AI automation has become an irreversible structural trend.