Autodesk is to reduce its staffing by nine percent: is AI to blame?
Autodesk produces 3D software used by a large proportion of the 3D print community, led by their very popular Fusion 360 system. Any change to their status could affect 3D printer operators that use their products.
The company announced its financial results from last year, which seemed quite positive. They increased revenue, margin, income, and cash flow. All quite rosy!
But then, at the bottom of their press release, we see this:
“Following a review of our business, Autodesk has announced today a worldwide restructuring plan that includes a reduction in force that will result in the termination of approximately 9 percent of our workforce, or approximately 1,350 employees, other exit costs, and facility reductions. We anticipate incurring total pre-tax restructuring charges of approximately $135 million to $150 million, a substantial majority of which would result in cash expenditures.”
They are required to announce this because they are a publicly traded company, and this move will generate significant unexpected expenses that might affect their financials.
Could this be due to financial troubles, as is often the case with layoffs? This is unlikely, as their financials looked pretty reasonable to me.
However, Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost said this in their financial report:
“Autodesk is focused on the convergence of design and make in the cloud, enabled by platform, industry clouds, and AI. We are reallocating internal resources toward these critical areas and beginning the optimization of our go-to-market functions to better meet the evolving needs of our customers and channel partners. We expect consistent growth momentum and disciplined execution, reinforced by persistent share repurchases, to deliver sustainable shareholder value over many years.”
It appears they believe strongly in an AI future and are positioning their company to take advantage. They could be leveraging AI to become more productive when developing products, as other companies have done. Unfortunately, this can result in layoffs.
This could also mean we will see dramatically increased AI capabilities in Autodesk CAD tools. A company that uses AI itself clearly understands that its products could be deeply AI-enabled.
This might be a hint that they could be moving towards a future where “text to CAD” could be a lot more real than it is today.
Via Autodesk
