Synopsis
US real estate firm Opendoor is closing its India operations. Nearly 250 employees in Bengaluru and Chennai will be laid off. This move is part of a major restructuring. The company is integrating artificial intelligence to streamline operations. This shift aims to improve efficiency by consolidating systems and creating smaller, AI-native teams in the United States.Listen to this article in summarized format
What is Opendoor?
Founded in 2014, Opendoor built its business around simplifying home sales. The company allows homeowners to sell directly to Opendoor, which purchases properties, carries out renovations when necessary, and then resells them. By digitising large parts of the home-buying and selling process, Opendoor positioned itself as a technology-driven alternative to the traditional real estate market.
According to market intelligence platform Tracxn, Opendoor has raised $1.35 billion across 11 funding rounds since its inception. The company went public in December 2020, with its largest funding round coming after the listing—a $850 million post-IPO raise in August 2021.
Why is Opendoor reducing its workforce now?
The latest workforce reduction is tied to what CEO Kaz Nejatian calls “Opendoor 2.0”, a company-wide transformation aimed at embedding AI more deeply into operations while simplifying internal systems.
Opendoor had nearly 250 employees in its Bengaluru and Chennai offices. Since the launch of its Opendoor 2.0 initiative earlier this year, some of these roles have been relocated to the United States, with the company now completing the process by winding down its India operations entirely.
In an internal memo later posted on X, the company said the move reflects the fact that its customers are primarily based in the United States and that operations are more effective when carried out closer to those customers.
Nejatian noted that Opendoor had previously built a sizeable India-based workforce to manage manual workflows across multiple fragmented systems. However, the company has since consolidated many of these systems and created smaller, AI-native teams in the United States capable of handling customer-facing operations more efficiently.
The layoffs will affect almost all India-based employees, although a small number will remain temporarily to support the transition of critical workstreams.
Nejatian also said the decision was not a reflection of employee performance, describing the India team as key contributors to the company’s growth and encouraging other employers to consider hiring them.
What happens to the laid-off employees?
Opendoor said affected employees will receive severance packages, outplacement support, and other transition resources.
The move is significant not only because of the number of jobs affected but also because it highlights how AI is reshaping corporate workforce strategies.
The layoffs follow several years of workforce reductions at Opendoor. The company ended 2025 with 1,042 employees globally, down from 1,470 a year earlier. Its international workforce also declined significantly during that period, falling from 342 employees to 184.
Opendoor’s decision comes amid a wider wave of AI-driven restructuring across the technology sector. More than 92,000 technology workers have reportedly lost their jobs globally in the first five months of 2026, as companies increasingly cite automation, AI efficiencies, and post-pandemic workforce recalibration as reasons for layoffs.
