Snap Inc is set to lay off about 16% of its workforce, the company confirmed

Currently, Snap, the company behind social media platform Snapchat, employees over 5,000 people.

In the firm’s Investor Update presentation, CEO Evan Spiegel cited AI as a reason for his company’s job cuts, saying: ““rapid advancements in artificial intelligence [will] enable our teams to reduce repetitive work, increase velocity, and better support our community, partners, and advertisers.”

The newsletter also reported that a much anticipated integration between Snap and Perplexity is no longer going through.

Perplexity was meant to invest $400 million in cash and equity to see its AI engine embedded in Snapchat, with Snap aiming to see the partnership be the gold standard for AI assistant integration.

However, disagreements on terms delayed the deal, which appears to not be going through.

Meanwhile, a Snap spinoff is seeking to hire employees even as Snap looks at layoffs.

Specs, an organisation that recently separated itself to become a Snap subsidiary, was created to develop smart glasses leveraging augmented reality expertise from Snaps’s Lens Studio platform.

Like many social platforms, Snap has tried to expand its revenue intake beyond advertisements, launching Snap+ as a subscription service. Its subscribers now number over 25 million, as it supplements its revenue with its Memories photo archive scheme as well as in-app purchases.

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Snap’s premarket trading numbers jump around 10% following news of the layoffs. The firm also is closing over 300 currently open rolls, with expectations that the recruitment winddown and job cuts will save them about $500 million by the second half of 2026.

Snap’s CEO is aiming for a 60% positive gross margin for 2026, and is expecting a 12% year-on-year increase in its revenues, which would about to $1.529bn.