Wix Cuts 20% of Workforce as CEO Cites AI Evolution and Currency Pressures

Israel-based web development company Wix is eliminating roughly 20% of its workforce, CEO Avishai Abrahami announced Thursday in a post on X, pointing to the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence capabilities and mounting pressure from currency exchange rates as the drivers behind the decision.

Wix employed 5,277 people at the end of the first quarter, according to a company shareholder update from May, putting the number of affected individuals at just over 1,000.

"We have witnessed the most significant shift in how companies are built since the invention of modern programming languages in the 1970s. This is not just about adopting new tools — it is about rewiring how companies are built, how they think, how they manage and how they operate," Abrahami wrote in his post.

Abrahami said the company would move toward fewer layers of leadership in order to make faster decisions, framing the restructuring as an organizational overhaul rather than a purely cost-driven measure.

On the financial side, Abrahami pointed to the strengthening Israeli shekel against the U.S. dollar as a separate but compounding factor, saying the exchange rate had created "structural pressure" on the company's ability to operate at its current scale.

Wix did not respond to requests for confirmation or additional details on the layoffs.

Shares of the Nasdaq-listed company traded flat following the announcement.

The cuts come as a broad wave of tech sector layoffs continues to reshape corporate headcounts, with executives across the industry increasingly citing artificial intelligence's capacity to automate workloads as justification for reducing staff.

In February, Block cut nearly 4,000 jobs — slashing almost half its workforce — with CFO Amrita Ahuja saying the company saw an opportunity to "move faster with smaller, highly talented teams using AI to automate more work." Cisco cut 5% of its workforce this month, with CEO Chuck Robbins emphasizing the need for a "rapid reallocation of resources" given the speed of the market. Last week, Meta eliminated around 8,000 jobs, representing roughly 10% of its headcount.

The pattern underscores a broader reckoning across the technology industry, where companies are recalibrating staffing levels against the backdrop of tools that can handle tasks once requiring large engineering and operations teams.

For Wix, the dual pressures of AI-driven efficiency expectations and unfavorable foreign exchange dynamics reflect a challenge particular to companies headquartered outside the United States with significant dollar-denominated revenue, signaling that the current round of tech workforce reductions is being shaped by factors well beyond any single market trend.

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