Cologne AI translator DeepL lays off a quarter of its workforce

“We are reducing DeepL's workforce by about 250 positions,” writes DeepL founder and CEO Jarek Kutylowski on LinkedIn today. The layoffs affect about a quarter of the employees of the Cologne unicorn. According to its statements, the company currently employs more than 1000 people. The company does not specify which business areas are primarily impacted by the layoffs.

Most difficult decision

Kutylowski continues to write in his post that the decision was not easy for him: “It is the most difficult decision I have had to make in my career,” says the DeepL boss. “However, it is a conscious structural decision about how DeepL must operate to remain a global leader in AI.”

The job cuts are accompanied by extensive structural changes within the company: DeepL wants to fundamentally change its way of working and integrate AI into all levels of workflows. In addition, the company plans to switch to smaller, self-responsible teams where AI will take over routine tasks and employees can “focus on what only humans can do.” He cites the use of intuition, the development of creative ideas, and project support from start to finish as examples. “AI systems will enable us to put more energy into the work that truly matters and to move forward with unprecedented speed, leaving behind recurring obstacles and daily inefficiencies,” Kutylowski said.

Structural Change

Kutylowski will become more involved in operations himself during the restructuring to accelerate the change. He will lead a small working group that will “fundamentally rethink the approach to product development, customer acquisition, and collaboration with them at all levels – with AI at the center.”

The DeepL CEO continues: “We are currently undergoing a massive structural shift in what work exists, who does it, and how many people are needed for it.” Companies that undergo change now will shape the next decade. “Those who wait will spend it catching up.”

DeepL is apparently developing the corresponding tools for structural change itself. Because in addition to its translation tools, DeepL presented an AI agent for companies last year that can handle tasks in finance, sales, and customer service. According to the company, the agent has been “developed to optimize and automate a wide range of knowledge work tasks.”

Investors valued the company at two billion US dollars in the last major financing round in May 2024. The Cologne-based start-up was also considered a candidate for a possible IPO in the USA. According to the Bloomberg report, DeepL could have aimed for a valuation of up to five billion dollars in a listing; the company did not comment at the time. Most recently, in mid-April, DeepL presented real-time speech translation specifically for corporate use.

(afl)