Freelancer platform Fiverr is laying off 250 employees across different departments as part of a restructuring plan that aims to make the company artificial intelligence (AI)-focused “from the ground up.”
In a Monday (Sept. 15) letter to employees shared on the company’s investor relations website, Fiverr Founder and CEO Micha Kaufman said the company has already embraced AI in everything it does, including coding, marketing and providing customer care.
“We need to accelerate this mode of work,” Kaufman said in the letter. “We can and should dream bigger and build faster, using this moment to build what’s next for Fiverr on a modern, clean, AI-focused infrastructure from the ground up.”
In a note to shareholders that accompanied the posting of the letter, Fiverr said it does not expect the restructuring plan to impact business activities on its marketplace in the near term.
Fiverr added in the note that it reiterated its guidance for the third quarter and the fiscal year.
In the letter to employees, Kaufman said the company’s freelancing platform is more relevant than ever as the labor force becomes more fluid, human skills evolve and AI blurs “the line between products and services.”
“Millions of businesses around the world already depend on Fiverr to stay competitive, but we know there are even larger opportunities that we have yet to tap into — AI applications, enterprise budgets and long-term projects,” Kaufman said. “To aggressively pursue these opportunities, we need to go back to a startup mode, with speed and agility, a flatter organizational structure, and an AI-focused infrastructure and methodology.”
Fiverr said in July that it saw a nearly 15% year-over-year increase in revenue, driven in part by what it called a “surging demand” for AI-related services in categories such as AI agents and workflow automation.
“With AI fundamentally changing how humans and machines interact, it allows many nontechnical entrepreneurs and professionals to build and leverage the technology,” Kaufman said July 30 in prepared remarks for the company’s quarterly earnings call. “At the same time, we are increasingly seeing the gaps between on-the-shelf AI tools and the real-world problems our customers are trying to solve.”
Kaufman added that Fiverr’s freelancers fill those gaps by setting up AI systems, choosing AI models or debugging any issues the customer encounters.
Source: https://www.pymnts.com/