The layoffs have nothing to do with AI, they’re just pruning their headcount in response to the last few quarters of financial results and projections about the next few years.

They want to be prudent about how they manage headcount to preserve their share price, because a large part of SWE compensation is equity. If the share-based compensation packages are worth substantially less, they lose headcount anyway, but instead of losing people they think are potentially redundant or replaceable on their own terms, they might lose top performers to other companies when they can’t afford to.