What ClickUp’s mass layoff tells us about the future of work
Key takeaways
- Zeb Evans, CEO of the collaboration software startup Click Up, claims that this shift is imminent.
- “Most savings from this change will flow directly back into the people who stay.
- ClickUp recently introduced roughly 3,000 internal AI agents to handle a wide range of complex tasks on behalf of its employees, according to a Fortune article published several days ago.
What Click Up’s mass layoff tells us about the future of work Marina Temkin Mon, May 25, 2026 at 11:00 PM GMT+7 3 min read Image Credits:Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/Light Rocket / Getty Images AI’s biggest champions have argued for some time that the technology will usher in an era of unprecedented productivity gains, richly rewarding workers who harness it while displacing those who don’t.
Zeb Evans, CEO of the collaboration software startup Click Up, claims that this shift is imminent. Last Thursday, Evans announced on X that the company, which was last valued in 2021 at $4 billion, had laid off 22% of its workforce yet characterized that reduction as not a cost-cutting measure, but rather a radical embrace of AI that will propel the company to the next level.
“Most savings from this change will flow directly back into the people who stay. We’ll be introducing million-dollar salary bands. If you create outsized impact using AI, you’ll be paid outside of traditional bands,” Evans wrote.