Freshworks cuts 13% of its workforce, impacting 660 employees
In an internal memo, CEO Dennis Woodside said the decision reflects the company’s focus on key growth areas, including AI, Employee Experience (EX), and Customer Experience (CX) offerings.
SaaS major has laid off around 13% of its global headcount, impacting 660 employees out of its 5,000 strong workforce.
Dennis Woodside, CEO of Freshworks, in an internal memo, said, the decision reflects the company’s focus on key growth areas, including AI, Employee Experience (EX), and Customer Experience (CX) offerings.
“One of the first things our Board of Directors asked me to do when I became CEO five months ago was to assess our strategy and ensure we’re focused on the most critical drivers of our business. This work resulted in our three strategic imperatives (our Employee Experience business, AI and our Customer Experience business) and gave us a clear view into where we need to simplify the way we work and operate more efficiently,” said Dennis Woodside in an internal memo.
The Nasdaq-listed firm will notify affected employees through a “Transition Discussion” meeting, with discussions scheduled on different timelines depending on regional laws and practices. The memo further stated that impacted employees in the US and India are expected to receive notifications on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.
“To add more focus on our EX, AI, and CX priorities, we are realigning our global workforce, putting us on a path to have a bigger impact for our customers. We're making these changes while our business is profitable and our AI-powered products are providing increasing customer value. We believe this will help us accelerate our growth and simplify the way we work, so that we’re running Freshworks in a way that’s efficient and scalable,” Woodside noted.
The company said it will provide support for departing employees, including severance packages, extended healthcare coverage, career transition services, and immigration assistance.
Freshworks recently launched Freddy AI Agent, an easy-to-deploy autonomous service agent designed to enhance both CX and EX efforts. The introduction of Freddy AI Agent comes at a time when many enterprises are adopting AI agents to streamline their workflows.
The AI agents can be deployed within minutes and have resolved an average of 45% of customer support requests and 40% of IT service inquiries, said the company in a statement.
Meanwhile, Freshworks has reported a 22% growth in revenue, climbing to $186.6 million for the third quarter ended September 30, 2024, up from $153.6 million in the same period last year.
The company parred its losses by 3.55% to $29.9 million during the quarter under review, compared to $31 million in the previous year.