ClickUp laid off 22% of its workforce, replacing hundreds of employees with roughly 3,000 internal AI agents in what CEO Zeb Evans called “a full embrace of AI-driven productivity.”
Evans announced the cuts on X, framing them not as a cost-cutting measure but as a structural transformation. Remaining employees now direct AI agents to handle complex tasks and review their output rather than performing the work themselves. Evans described his goal as turning ClickUp into a “100x org.”
The company, last valued at $4 billion in 2021, recently deployed the 3,000 AI agents across internal operations. Evans said most savings from the restructuring will flow back to employees who stay. He also announced million-dollar salary bands for workers who deliver outsized impact using AI.
“The people that automate their jobs with AI will always have a job,” he wrote.
ClickUp’s move reflects a broader trend, but the results across the industry are mixed. A recent Gartner survey found that roughly 80% of companies using autonomous AI technology have cut jobs. However, those workforce reductions are not translating into meaningful financial returns, according to the same study. Gartner’s findings suggest some companies use unproven AI as an excuse to downsize rather than as a genuine productivity driver.
ClickUp maintains it is measuring real productivity gains internally and plans to package those efficiencies into a forthcoming product for its own customers. Evans also pushed back on the practice of “tokenmaxxing,” where companies monitor employee AI token consumption as a productivity metric. He said ClickUp instead measures value created and time saved rather than token spend.
ClickUp is not the only company redefining what a workforce looks like. Intuit announced it will lay off over 3,000 employees to refocus on AI. Meanwhile, startup Polsia operates with just one employee, its founder, and recently raised $30 million at a $250 million valuation by running all software operations through AI automation.
