AI Translation Company DeepL Cuts 250 Jobs to Become 'AI-Native'

DeepL, the German AI-powered translation service that competes with Google Translate and other machine translation tools, is laying off roughly 250 employees. The cuts were announced by CEO and founder Jarek Kutylowski on LinkedIn, who described it as the hardest decision of his career. Kutylowski stated that DeepL's current structure isn't built for what's to come, and the company wants to rebuild itself as an 'AI-native' organization, where smaller teams utilize AI to handle work that previously required entire departments.

To facilitate this transition, Kutylowski plans to personally lead a task force focused on realigning products and processes. In conjunction with the restructuring, DeepL is doubling down on real-time voice translation. The company is acquiring the team from Mixhalo, a specialist in audio streaming technology.

As part of this move, DeepL will also be opening a new office in San Francisco. The layoffs and restructuring come as DeepL aims to stay competitive in the machine translation market. With the acquisition of Mixhalo's team and the expansion to San Francisco, DeepL is making a significant bet on its future in AI-powered translation.