The payment platform PayPal announced this Tuesday that it was laying off 2,500 workers. The company's CEO, Alex Chriss, said in a statement that the staff cut, equivalent to 9% of its workforce, is part of a plan to "right-size our business":
I am writing to share the difficult news that we will be reducing our global workforce by approximately 9% through both direct reductions and the elimination of open roles over the course of the year. We are doing this to right-size our business, allowing us to move with the speed needed to deliver for our customers and drive profitable growth. At the same time, we will continue to invest in areas of the business we believe will create and accelerate growth.
The layoffs, notified between Tuesday and Friday of this week, join the nearly 2,000 people who lost their jobs on the payment platform during January of last year. And they come after PayPal shares fell 20% over the last year.
AI, the hope of PayPal
The announcement comes a week after Chriss reported that PayPal was planning to launch a series of tools using AI aimed to "revolutionize commerce." Some of these products, the company detailed in a statement, include "smart receipts." This tool will employ artificial intelligence to send merchants "personalized recommendations from merchants to keep them coming back."
It won't be the only one. PayPal announced up to six tools that will include artificial intelligence to improve the experience of its users. This is what its CEO, Alex Chriss, explained during the presentation of these advances:
PayPal is introducing six new innovations that will not only solve real customer pain points, but we believe will change the world of payments and commerce. From new solutions for merchants to speed up checkout and personalize offers, to a new consumer app that will give our loyal customers more reasons to shop with PayPal, to the next generation of Venmo designed to be the growth platform for local small businesses, PayPal has always brought the future of money to our consumers and merchants and today marks the next revolution.
