GitLab Inc., which makes software that helps developers on coding projects, said it is cutting jobs to free up money to spend on the market opportunity for artificial intelligence agents.
Shares fell more than 8% in after-market trading. The cuts are “not an AI optimization or cost cutting exercise,” Chief Executive Officer Bill Staples said in a memo to employees on Monday.
“We intend to reinvest the vast majority of savings back into the business to accelerate our unique opportunity in the agentic era,” he added, referring to the market for using AI agents to complete business tasks.
GitLab will cut layers of management and reorganize its research and development teams, while reducing the number of countries it operates in. The company will also will be “rewiring internal processes with AI agents, automating the reviews, approvals and handoffs to speed us up.”
Staples does not yet know how many roles this process will eliminate, and expects to share results of the process on June 2 at GitLab’s quarterly earnings report.
“We must revisit the size of staffing for each role to ensure we are optimizing for speed and customer outcomes,” Staples wrote. “In some cases AI can augment and accelerate what team members have been doing, in other places we need to expand certain roles to go faster.”
The company reaffirmed its guidance for the quarter and fiscal year 2027.
