Patreon is laying off 20 percent of its workers, or around 93 employees, as reported earlier by 404 Media. In a memo to employees, Patreon CEO Jack Conte writes that the company isn’t making these changes “because we believe AI replaces humans,” but says AI has “fundamentally transformed the tech industry, including how we work, how we build products, how we communicate, and more.”
That shift has changed “how we operate and organize,” Conte writes.
During an interview on Decoder, last month, Conte laid out his stance on AI, saying that the company is “100 percent embracing” AI tools internally to continue serving creators:
If Patreon does not fully embrace these tools as a product and engineering company — and we are ultimately a product and engineering company — and use them to give the power back to creators, we, as a company, will be dead in three years.