By Angela Palumbo
Intuit reported better-than-expected financial results for its crucial tax season Wednesday, while also announcing a round of layoffs.
Intuit said it's reducing its full-time workforce by 17%. The company joins a list of tech firms that have announced job cuts this year. According to Layoffs.fyi, a website that tracks tech layoffs, 111,173 tech employees have lost their jobs in 2026. That's getting close to the 124,201 total the website reported for all of 2025.
Many tech companies that have reported layoffs this year have pointed to artificial intelligence as a reason for the cuts. Meta Platforms started laying off about 8,000 people to "offset the other investments we're making." Cloudflare said earlier this month that it was cutting about 1,100 jobs as the cybersecurity company focuses on roles that can directly benefit from AI usage. Snap said in April that it was cutting 16% of tis workforce as AI advancements help improve productivity.
When asked by Barron's how AI played a role in this new round of layoffs, CEO Sasan Goodarzi said, "It had no bearing."
"This is not an AI layoff. Frankly, I think we overuse that as a reason to communicate across the industry," Goodrazi said. He added that the reason for the job cuts was to make Intuit a faster and leaner company that will help it focus on its necessary areas of growth.
Goodarzi's comments about using AI as an excuse for job cuts follows what experts in the industry have said. Many say tech layoffs are more about cutting costs as AI spending grows, and less about AI replacing people's jobs.
Intuit also reported adjusted earnings for its fiscal third quarter of $12.80 a share, which was better than Wall Street estimates of $12.57, according to FactSet. Revenue of $8.56 billion also came in above analyst estimates of $8.54 billion for the April quarter.
The financial services software company also raised its fiscal 2026 earnings and revenue guidance. Intuit now expects fiscal 2026 earnings between $23.80 a share and $23.85 a share on revenue of $21.3 billion to $21.4 billion. The company previously expected earnings between $22.98 a share to $23.18 a share on revenue of $21 billion to $21.2 billion.
Shares of Intuit have taken a hit this year, falling 42%, as some on Wall Street worry that AI will replace some software capabilities.
"You can't run your entire business in an LLM [large-language model], because audits matter, accuracy matters, compliance matters, and that's really what we do," Goodrazi said.
Write to Angela Palumbo at angela.palumbo@dowjones.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 20, 2026 16:03 ET (20:03 GMT)
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