The AI Cover Story For Layoffs
As AI adoption soars, an unsettling reality is unravelling. Global tech giants are slashing jobs in hordes, citing automation and restructuring. Experts, however, opine that AI may have just become an excuse for layoffs, as companies rejig their cost structures to fund a capital-intensive transition to an AI-first future.
On The Chopping Block: This shift is vividly playing out at Oracle, where estimates suggest up to 30,000 employees have been laid off globally. India is expected to account for 4,000 of these layoffs. Then, there is Atlassian that recently announced a 10% workforce reduction, while Block trimmed its workforce by up to 40%, citing AI efficiency gains.
Funding AI With Pink Slips: The driving force behind these severe job cuts appears to be capital reallocation. Tech giants are pouring billions into data centres and hardware to fulfil contracts for AI giants. As a result, companies are aggressively trimming legacy operations and software teams to stockpile cash for GPUs, specialised data engineering teams, and power grids.
The Smokescreen? A growing chorus of sceptics also argues that AI is being heavily utilised as an excuse. Critics point to “AI washing”, whereby companies are blaming artificial AI to mask cost pressures or the correction of aggressive pandemic-era overhiring. In line with this, big tech companies seem to be pulling the fastest lever at their disposal – headcount reduction.
They also argue that big tech firms are under pressure to operate with leaner headcounts. Framing job cuts as AI-related conveniently projects the efficiency image while funding massive infrastructure bets. So, is AI washing becoming the new cover for big tech layoffs? Let’s find out…
From The Editor’s Desk
📈 Nykaa’s Q4 Outlook
- The listed beauty ecommerce giant expects to report net revenue growth in the late twenties in the recently concluded quarter (Q4 FY26). The net revenue growth for the full FY26 is expected to be at the upper end of mid-twenties.
- The company also projects its budding fashion vertical to clock GMV growth in the late twenties and NSV growth in the early forties. Net revenue from the vertical is expected to improve to the early thirties, driven by continued customer acquisition.
- Meanwhile, Nykaa is said to be in talks to acquire a majority stake in Deepika Padukone-owned beauty and personal care brand 82°E.
💼 New Compliance Officer At Fino
- The listed payments bank’s board has approved the appointment of ex-RBI executive Abhilash Ankathil as the company’s new chief compliance officer (CCO). He took charge yesterday for a period of three years.
- The appointment comes days after Aashish Pathak quit as the company’s CCO, citing personal reasons after a nearly three-year-long tenure.
- The rejig comes barely a month after the DGGI arrested the company’s MD Rishi Gupta in connection with an alleged ₹840 GST evasion case. Gupta is accused of being part of a syndicate that routed funds for online betting platforms through shell entities.
💰 GoSats Bags $5 Mn
- The bitcoin rewards startup has raised nearly ₹47 Cr in its Series A round led by US-based VC firm Konvoy to increase its user base to 1 Mn in the coming years, expand its product suite, shore up its tech stack and ramp up hiring.
- Founded in 2020, GoSats enables users to redeem their cashback for Bitcoins, gold rewards for physical gold and other asset classes. It also offers physical Visa cards that can be topped up with cash or existing credit cards.
- Backed by Accel and Valhalla Capital, the startup has raised $5 Mn to date and counts the likes of names such as Flipkart, Swiggy and Nykaa as its partners. It claims to have 80,000 monthly active users and disburses rewards worth ₹40 Lakh per month.
🚨 Inside Another Crisis At Kult
- The beauty marketplace is in the middle of a full-blown crisis once again. The company’s employees have been unpaid for months, and vendors are still awaiting their dues as governance problems continue to resurface.
- On top of this, it has now emerged that only about ₹50 Cr of the ₹185 Cr Series A funding announced last year was infused.
- Meanwhile, numbers also paint a bleak picture of Kult’s business model. The company’s FY25 revenue was just ₹27.5 Lakh against losses of ₹3.2 Cr, forcing the startup to lean on loans and inventory financing.
💸 SatLeo Labs Nets $2.2 Mn
- The spacetech startup has bagged about ₹20.5 Cr in its seed round led by Unicorn India Ventures to accelerate its flagship thermal satellite mission and develop its AI-powered thermal intelligence platform.
- Founded in 2023, SatLeo Labs builds satellites that can take both thermal and visual images of Earth to help track crop health, wildfire risks, weather patterns, and support defence surveillance. With the latest round, SatLeo Labs has raised $5.5 Mn to date.
- The funding comes amid growing investor interest in spacetech startups. In 2025, funding for the sector almost doubled YoY to $157 Mn amid regulatory push, innovative solutions and global demand for such products.
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Inc42 Startup Spotlight
NPrep’s AI Twist To Nursing Test Prep
India is home to one of the largest nursing workforces globally. Yet, exam preparation for the profession still relies largely on offline coaching, static PDFs and passive video lectures. NPrep is trying to fix this gap with AI-led, exam-focused learning.
AI-Powered Nursing Prep: Founded in 2024, NPrep is an AI-powered edtech platform that helps aspirants prepare for nursing courses. NPrep provides more than 1,400 hours of exam-aligned video content, personalised study plans, curated questions based on historical exam patterns, and performance tracking tools.
An AI mentor guides learners through the preparation journey, making the experience more adaptive than traditional coaching.
Growing Traction: The startup claims to have crossed 1 Lakh users within 10 months of its inception, with learners spending more than 60 Lakh minutes on video content and answering 3.1 Cr questions. That traction suggests strong demand for a more structured, tech-enabled path into nursing careers.
Riding A Large Market: The Lumikai-backed startup is eyeing a piece of the broader Indian test prep market, which is projected to become a $14.3 Bn opportunity by 2030. With nursing graduates seeking higher-paying roles and global mobility, can NPrep become the training layer for India’s next generation of nurses?
Infographic Of The Day
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