Cisco to lay off more than 4,000 employees to focus on artificial intelligence
NY Post
Cisco revealed plans to slash its headcount by 5% — roughly 4,250 employees across the tech behemoth’s global workforce — as it steps up its focus on artificial intelligence.
San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco said the layoffs — which will cost the company some $800 million in pre-tax charges related to severance and benefits — will enable it to focus on high-growth areas such as AI and software development.
Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins told investors on Wednesday: “Our innovation sits at the center of an increasingly connected ecosystem and will play a critical role as our customers adopt AI and secure their organizations.”
The IT and software maker — which has roughly 85,000 workers worldwide — announced the layoffs in an earnings call alongside its quarterly results, where it also cut its annual revenue forecast from as much as $55 billion to between $51.5 billion and $52.5 billion.
“We also continue to see weak demand with our telco and cable service provider customers,” Robbins added during the call.
As part of its AI push, Cisco announced the next phase of its partnership with chip giant Nvidia earlier this month “to offer enterprises simplified cloud-based and on-prem AI infrastructure,” including “both networking hardware and software to support advanced AI workloads,” according to Robbins.
