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Medium reported severity

Freelance marketplace Fiverr says it is cutting 30% of its workforce, reported as 250 staff, as its CEO's letter says it will become an AI-first company

On 15 September 2025 Micha Kaufman, co-founder and chief executive of the online freelance marketplace Fiverr, sent staff a letter announcing what he called a painful reset to turn Fiverr into an AI-first company that is leaner and faster, with a modern AI-focused tech infrastructure, a smaller team and far fewer management layers. A company spokesperson told Reuters that Fiverr was laying off 30% of its workforce, and Reuters reported that the cuts would affect 250 employees; Fiverr had 762 employees at the end of 2024. The Israeli business paper Globes reported that most of the 250 employees who would lose their jobs were based in Israel. Reuters said it was not clear which kinds of jobs would be affected. Kaufman said the transformation would not affect business on the platform or harm its freelancers. No source names an AI tool that took over the dismissed employees' work.

AI system
Unidentified AI tools
Occurred
15 Sept 2025
Reported
15 September 2025
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Relation unknown
Reported harm
Professional Harm
Whose AI use
An institution’s AI use
Setting
Work
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources
4 claims: 4 reported. 3 open questions
People reported harmed
Not reliably quantifiable from the sources

AI system as recorded: Fiverr's planned AI-first restructuring of its own operations and technology; no specific AI tool is named as replacing the roles cut

What Happened

The letter. On 15 September 2025 Fiverr's co-founder and chief executive, Micha Kaufman, shared a letter with staff announcing a transformation to turn Fiverr into an AI-first company that is leaner and faster, with a modern AI-focused tech infrastructure, a smaller team, each with substantially greater productivity, and far fewer management layers. He called the change a painful reset. Globes, which quotes the letter in its own translation, reports him writing that AI is reshaping work and that Fiverr should build itself faster as a modern AI-centric infrastructure.

The layoff. A company spokesperson told Reuters that Fiverr was laying off 30% of its workforce as it doubled down on artificial intelligence to automate systems and streamline operations; Reuters reported the cuts would affect 250 employees, out of 762 employees at the end of 2024. Globes reported that most of the 250 employees who would lose their jobs were based in Israel. The Hill, citing The Wall Street Journal for the share of the workforce, reported the same figure of 250.

What is not known. Reuters said it was not clear what kinds of jobs would be affected. Kaufman said business on Fiverr would not be affected and that the layoffs would not harm freelancers on the platform. No source names an AI tool or says that particular dismissed roles were taken over by AI.

Reported harm

Fiverr's CEO tied a layoff of 30% of staff, reported as 250 employees, to turning the company into an AI-first company with a smaller team.

Outcome

Resolved

Fiverr announced the layoff on 15 September 2025 as part of a restructuring plan. No legal challenge, union action or later reversal is reported in the sources read.

What remains unknown

  • Which roles were cut and whether any particular dismissed role was taken over by an AI system.
  • How many people finally left the company, and on what terms.
  • The countries of the affected employees other than Israel.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. This is a consequential response to an employer's decision to adopt AI: Fiverr's chief executive wrote to staff that the company would become an AI-first company with a modern AI-focused tech infrastructure and a smaller team, and a spokesperson tied the 30% layoff to doubling down on artificial intelligence to automate systems and streamline operations. No source names an AI tool or says that particular dismissed roles were taken over by AI, so no relation between an AI system and the dismissed employees is established.

4 claims: 4 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported Fiverr's chief executive shared a letter with staff on 15 September 2025 announcing a painful reset to turn Fiverr into an AI-first company that is leaner and faster, with a modern AI-focused tech infrastructure, a smaller team and far fewer management layers.

Causal attribution. The employer's own statement, quoted from one letter.

  • tradingview.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'We are launching a transformation for Fiverr, to turn Fiverr into an AI-first company that's leaner, faster, with a modern AI-focused tech infrastructure, a smaller team, each with substantially greater productivity, and far fewer management layers,'
  • digital-release.thehill.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'Kaufman shared the letter with his staff on Sept. 15, announcing that the company is laying off 250 employees as part of a “painful reset” and a pursuit to become an “AI-first company.”'
Reported A company spokesperson said Fiverr was laying off 30% of its workforce as it doubled down on AI to automate systems and streamline operations; the cuts were reported to affect 250 employees, out of 762 at the end of 2024.

Causal attribution. The company's statements and figures at the announcement; the link to AI is the employer's own framing.

  • tradingview.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'is laying off 30% of its workforce, a company spokesperson said on Monday, as the online services marketplace doubles down on artificial intelligence to automate systems and streamline operations.'; 'The cuts, which will affect 250 employees'; 'The company had 762 employees as of December last year.'
  • en.globes.co.il(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'is laying off 250 employees, or 30% of its workforce.'
Reported Most of the employees losing their jobs were based in Israel.

Causal attribution. Reported by Globes.

Reported Reuters said it was not clear what kinds of jobs would be affected, and the CEO said the layoffs would not harm freelancers on the platform.

Causal attribution. Recorded as limits on what the AI link establishes.

Sources

3 sources inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in English on 2026-11-02 (HTTP 200): the Reuters report as carried by TradingView News, citing a company spokesperson and quoting the CEO's letter. Applies to s1.

Read in English on 2026-11-02 (HTTP 200): Globes English edition; it quotes the CEO's letter in its own translation and adds where the affected employees are based. Applies to s2.

Read in English on 2026-11-02 (HTTP 200): The Hill's report on the CEO's letter; it cites The Wall Street Journal for the share of the workforce. Applies to s3.

Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Israel. Court countries: Unknown.

Globes reports that most of the employees losing their jobs were based in Israel. The company's headquarters is not used to locate the event, and the countries of the remaining employees are not reported.

Reviewed for publication 2026-11-02: Published as a consequential response to AI adoption: Fiverr's chief executive tied a layoff of 30% of staff, reported as 250 employees, to turning the company into an AI-first company with a smaller team, and a spokesperson tied it to doubling down on AI. The dismissed employees' relation to any AI system is not established, so the case carries the consequential-response exemption.

People described

Fiverr employees, most of them based in Israel, whose jobs were cut in the September 2025 restructuring

People reported harmed in this case

Not reliably quantifiable from the sources

Reuters reports the cuts would affect 250 employees and a spokesperson gave 30% of the workforce; these are the company's figures at the announcement, and no source reports how many people finally left, so the count stays unquantified with zero placeholders.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#ai-restructuring#layoffs#employer-statement#freelance-marketplace

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Freelance marketplace Fiverr says it is cutting 30% of its workforce, reported as 250 staff, as its CEO's letter says it will become an AI-first company. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-freelance-marketplace-fiverr-cuts-30-percent-of-staff-as-ceo-letter-says-it-will-become-an-ai-first-company

BibTeX

@misc{2025_freelance_marketplace_fiverr_cuts_30_percent_of_staff_as_ceo_letter_says_it_will_become_an_ai_first_company,
  title = {Freelance marketplace Fiverr says it is cutting 30\% of its workforce, reported as 250 staff, as its CEO's letter says it will become an AI-first company},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-freelance-marketplace-fiverr-cuts-30-percent-of-staff-as-ceo-letter-says-it-will-become-an-ai-first-company}
}

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