Fiverr Fires 30% of Staff to Fuel AI-First Transformation
The gig economy’s darling is giving human freelancers the pink slip to make room for AI. FiverrFVRR announced it’s slashing 30% of its workforce — roughly 250 employees — as part of CEO Micha Kaufman’s ambitious plan to transform the platform into an “AI-first” company. The irony isn’t lost on investors: a marketplace built on human creativity is now betting its future on machines.
- Revenue growth has decelerated to just 8% as the freelance platform struggles to adapt to changing market dynamics and AI disruption across creative industries.
- Despite the restructuring, the company maintained its Q3 and full-year guidance while promising to reinvest half the savings into hiring premium AI talent.
Survival mode: CEO Kaufman told staff the company should “go back to a startup mode” with a focus on AI. The pivot tracks with a wider tech shift as firms move into the grindset culture to restructure themselves into startup-style teams. Kaufman stressed that millions of businesses still rely on the platform, but hinted that the real prize lies in winning enterprise budgets through deeper AI integration.