India, Aug. 8 -- The layoff story of 2026 is increasingly being told as an AI story. The evidence, however, is more complicated.

More than 40 major companies have announced workforce reductions this year, according to Business Insider's running tally, including Amazon, Meta, Oracle, Visa, UPS, Block, Coinbase, Atlassian, Cloudflare, and WiseTech. Yet those companies are not cutting jobs for the same reason.

Some have directly linked smaller workforces to artificial intelligence (AI), automation, or the productivity gains they expect from these technologies. Block, Coinbase, Standard Chartered, WiseTech, Cloudflare, and Atlassian are among the clearest examples.

Others are simultaneously dealing with cost pressures, organisational restr...