Hitten by the impact of artificial intelligence, translation tool DeepL plans to lay off 25% of its staff.

Odaily Planet Daily News DeepL, a German startup developing translation tools, announced plans to lay off about 25% of its employees. Company CEO Jarek Kutylowski attributed this move to the "massive structural shift" brought about by artificial intelligence. Kutylowski said in a LinkedIn post on Thursday that about 250 employees will be let go. The company currently has just over 1,000 employees. As AI tools replace work traditionally done by programmers, and tech companies redirect resources to building their own AI products, layoffs across the tech industry are rapidly expanding. Meta announced last month that it plans to cut 10% of its workforce. Microsoft, meanwhile, is offering buyout packages to about 7% of its U.S. employees. Founded in 2017, DeepL initially positioned itself as a competitor to Google Translate, offering tools to help developers build multilingual applications. In recent years, the company has also had to compete with translation services provided by ChatGPT and other AI tools. DeepL raised $300 million in 2024, reaching a valuation of $2 billion, and has previously considered an IPO in the U.S. (Jin Shi)