AI Layoffs or AI Washing? The Truth Behind Monday.com and Airtable Restructurings

"AI restructuring" has become one of the most loaded phrases in tech. Write it into a layoff memo and the headlines write themselves, investors nod, commentators argue. Almost no one asks the next question — what did the AI actually do?

Two recent cases illustrate the problem. Monday.com cut roughly 20% of its staff. Bending Spoons, weeks after acquiring Airtable, cut a "significant portion" of roles. Both got filed into the "AI layoffs" bucket by a lot of feeds. But read what the two companies actually said, and the stories diverge completely.

What Monday.com Actually Said

First, a news-cycle correction. Monday.com's layoffs weren't new — they were announced in an SEC filing dated July 22, 2026, describing a plan to "align the company's organizational structure with its strategic focus on an AI-powered work platform" and to support a "leaner, more focused operating model." Some outlets repackaged it as fresh news in October.

What's surprising is that the founders explicitly rejected the "AI took your job" reading. In their letter to employees, Roy Mann and Eran Zinman wrote: "This decision is not about cutting costs or replacing people with AI." They added: "Improving margins is not the purpose of this decision."

They also gave some specifics. Follow-up filings showed most cut roles were "not in customer-facing positions." On the Q2 earnings call, management described "fewer management layers, smaller teams," and said most of the savings would be reinvested in "people, product, and AI."

So the Monday.com story is fundamentally a strategic pivot toward an AI product plus organizational flattening. That tracks. But "AI" still sits at the center of the announcement, and that's the part most readers remember.

SEC filing refers to formal disclosure documents that U.S. public companies submit to the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. When a company plans a material action that could affect its stock price — like mass layoffs or restructuring — it typically must disclose it via a form such as 8-K. These filings carry legal weight and go through legal and compliance review, so they reflect a company's real characterization more reliably than PR emails or press releases. Monday.com described the layoffs in its filing as "aligned with its strategic focus on an AI-powered work platform" — a compliance statement aimed at investors, which sits in subtle tension with the founders' later internal denial of "replacing people with AI." That gap helps explain why the same event gets read differently across channels.

What Bending Spoons Actually Said

Bending Spoons never called this an AI layoff at all. Federico Simionato's post on X said the cuts were "not a reflection on their work, but on our strong belief that small teams deliver more and better."

Then he listed what "better" looks like: a new Core team that "has already shipped 30+ items in 3 weeks," plus "an upgraded Omni, Airtable Canvas, stronger MCP, and BYO agents." Airtable's own newsroom post said departing employees "received generous severance" and credited a small "Speedy Squad" with the 30+ improvements.

These are real numbers, and sharing them deserves credit. But notice the shape: the stated reason is team size, and the roadmap is AI features. Put them in the same post, and readers connect the dots themselves.

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open protocol introduced by Anthropic in late 2024 to let AI models connect to external tools, data sources, and services in a standardized way. It amounts to giving models a universal interface, so agents can read databases, call APIs, and operate software without writing a separate integration for each tool. BYO agents means "Bring Your Own Agents," allowing customers to connect their own AI agents to the platform rather than being limited to vendor-provided ones. Omni and Airtable Canvas are Airtable's product interface and collaborative canvas. By listing these terms in the layoff post, Simionato is effectively using the product roadmap to imply: the team got smaller, but AI features are expanding fast — and readers will naturally connect the two.

The Evidence Gap

I went looking for independent evidence that AI had actually taken over these people's work. Posts from affected employees, internal reporting, analyst data, anything.

Nothing. To be precise: I found no independent source — from employees or otherwise — validating that AI absorbed the cut work at either company. In fairness, neither company actually claimed that. Monday.com directly denied it.

That's the crux. The "AI layoff" label gets applied more by headlines, feeds, and trackers than by evidence. And companies — even cautious ones — rarely give enough detail to settle the question.

This isn't just a hunch. The independent registry AI Layoffs found that of 259 AI-related layoffs it tracked, employers cited AI as the sole reason in only 23. In 64 cases, only the media or other parties drew the AI connection. Fortune reported a Gartner survey of 350 executives finding that companies are cutting before AI has actually proven returns.

AI washing borrows the word-formation logic of "greenwashing" and refers to companies packaging decisions or products only loosely related to AI as AI-driven to capture narrative dividends. In the layoff context, it shows up as slapping the "AI restructuring" label onto routine drivers like cost-cutting, organizational adjustment, or M&A integration, because that phrase lands more easily with investors and media. Common ways to spot AI washing include: checking whether official filing language matches PR messaging, whether specific AI tools and roles are named, and whether verifiable quantitative metrics are provided. The article cites the AI Layoffs registry and the Gartner survey precisely to supply this kind of external check, rather than relying only on companies' self-narration.

Why "Show Your Work" Matters

I once helped a software consultancy grow from roughly $6 million to $60 million in under three years as a partner, and headcount was never the real constraint — clarity was. People can handle bad news. They can't handle vague reasons.

Vague reasons cost you in three places.

The people who stay. If the memo says it's about AI, every remaining employee runs the math: am I next? Which part of my job is being replaced by a model? Silence breeds the worst answers.

Your customers. Buyers read these memos too. If AI replaced the support team, they want to know who answers when the agent gets it wrong. If it didn't, say so.

Market trust. Every unexplained "AI restructuring" makes the next one easier to ignore. Eventually the phrase means nothing — and that hurts the companies genuinely doing AI transformation the most.

What I'd Rather See

I later founded and scaled a fully remote consultancy, where we survived on written clarity. Remote teams don't run on hallway explanations. So here's my standard for any "AI restructuring":

1. Name the roles. Which functions, roughly how many people, and why.
2. Name the tools. What AI, if any, is doing that work now. If none, say "this is about structure, not automation."
3. Show the data. Productivity numbers, before and after. Airtable's "30+ items in 3 weeks" is a start.
4. Separate the reasons. Cost, focus, overlap, AI. Be honest about the mix.
5. Commit to follow-up. Report back in two quarters on whether it worked.

None of this requires leaking trade secrets. It only requires treating employees, customers, and investors like adults.

The Bottom Line

Monday.com and Bending Spoons both said more than most. One explicitly denied AI replacement, the other led with team size and shared a delivery metric. Credit where it's due.

But "AI" still carries most of the narrative weight in how these layoffs were framed and received, and no one outside the companies can yet say what AI actually took over. Until leaders show their work, "AI restructuring" will keep sounding like a story rather than a fact.

Leaders, you don't need better wording. You need better evidence.

This article reflects the author's personal views based on publicly available information as of the date of publication and does not constitute a factual statement about any company's internal decisions.

One-line Summary

Monday.com and Bending Spoons layoffs got tagged as AI, but the evidence shows AI was never confirmed to have taken over the cut roles.

Paragraph Summary

Using two layoff cases — Monday.com and Bending Spoons (post-Airtable acquisition) — the article notes they were quickly filed into the "AI layoffs" bucket by feeds, yet close reading of official statements reveals very different stories: Monday.com tied the cuts to its AI work platform strategy in an SEC filing while its founders explicitly denied replacing people with AI; Bending Spoons never called it an AI layoff at all, citing "small teams deliver more" while listing an AI feature roadmap that invites the association. The author finds no independent evidence that AI absorbed the cut work, and cites the AI Layoffs registry (only 23 of 259 tracked layoffs cited AI as the sole reason) and a Gartner survey of 350 executives showing the AI layoff narrative is disconnected from actual ROI. The piece closes with transparency standards: name roles, name tools, show before-and-after data, separate reasons, and commit to a two-quarter follow-up.