Cisco’s layoffs stand out this year because they weren’t triggered by weak results. The networking giant announced the reduction of just under 4,000 roles, less than 5% of its roughly 86,200-person global workforce, on the same day it reported record third-quarter fiscal 2026 revenue of $15.84 billion, up 12% year-over-year and ahead of Wall Street’s $15.56 billion estimate. Adjusted earnings of $1.06 per share also beat the $1.03–1.04 analysts had expected.

CEO Chuck Robbins framed the cuts as a reallocation rather than a cost-cutting exercise, writing in a company blog post that competing in the AI era requires “focus, urgency and the discipline” to keep shifting investment toward the highest-value areas. CFO Mark Patterson echoed that on the earnings call, telling analysts the move was about realigning talent toward silicon, optics, security, and AI rather than pure savings. Notification letters went out to affected employees starting May 14, and the company is offering pro-rated fiscal-year bonuses, internal and external job placement support (which Cisco says has historically helped roughly 75% of participants land new roles), and a year of access to Cisco’s internal training and certification platform.

State-level WARN filings give a more granular view of where the cuts are landing. In California alone, Cisco disclosed 471 job eliminations: 236 in San José, 154 in Milpitas, and 81 in San Francisco, with software engineering roles forming the single largest affected group. The restructuring is expected to generate up to $1 billion in pre-tax charges, with about $450 million recognized in the fiscal fourth quarter and the remainder spread into fiscal 2027.

Cisco’s cuts also illustrate a broader theme industry trackers have flagged in 2026: AI investment and layoffs are increasingly happening at the same companies simultaneously. Meta, Snap, Block, Oracle, and Amazon have all announced AI-linked job cuts this year even as they ramp AI infrastructure spending, and outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that U.S. tech companies announced 85,411 job cuts in just the first four months of 2026, a 33% increase over the same period a year earlier.

Intel is trimming headcount again, this time inside the Data Center and AI Group, in a round that landed just before the company’s July 23 second-quarter earnings report. What makes the timing notable is that this isn’t a struggling division being cut for cause: DCG posted $5.05 billion in revenue during the first quarter of 2026, up 22% year-over-year, and analysts widely view it as one of Intel’s strongest-performing units, positioned to benefit as demand for CPUs alongside GPUs grows in AI data centers. Tom’s Hardware called the decision “quite surprising” given the segment’s momentum. Intel has not disclosed the exact number of roles eliminated in this specific round.

The cuts are the latest step in CEO Lip-Bu Tan’s turnaround plan since he took over from Pat Gelsinger in March 2025. Tan has pursued an aggressive, multi-year downsizing: Intel’s total headcount has fallen from roughly 132,000 employees in 2022 to about 81,000 today, and the company previously announced a target of cutting its core workforce by approximately 15%, a plan that had already resulted in more than 5,000 U.S. layoffs concentrated in California, Oregon, Arizona, and Texas through 2025. Earlier restructuring rounds hit Intel’s automotive architecture unit, its foundry division (15–20% of that workforce), and hundreds of roles at its large Oregon campuses, which together employ around 20,000 people.

Despite the cuts, Wall Street has responded favorably to the broader turnaround story: Intel shares have climbed more than 300% over the trailing year as investors credit Tan’s discipline. The company was expected to report adjusted earnings of 22 cents per share on roughly $14.45 billion in revenue for Q2, compared with a loss the year prior. Sector-wide, tracking site Layoffs.fyi recorded 121,326 tech job cuts industry-wide through the first seven months of 2026 alone, already nearing the 122,606 cuts recorded across all of 2025.

A person familiar with the matter told Business Insider that the DCG restructuring is not expected to affect the division’s existing product roadmap or customer commitments, and is intended purely to streamline internal operations rather than slow delivery.