FILE: Business Insider laid off about one fifth of its workforce Thursday, a sweeping round of cuts that affected every department and drew swift criticism.
Business Insider laid off about one fifth of its workforce Thursday, a sweeping round of cuts that affected every department and drew swift criticism from former employees and their union.
The layoffs were announced in a staff memo from Business Insider CEO Barbara Peng, who framed the cuts as part of a long-term transformation strategy to build the publication “the essential source of business, tech, and innovation journalism.”
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“We are reducing the size of our organization, a relocate that will impact about 21% of our colleagues and touch every department,” Peng wrote in the memo, which was sent to staff Thursday morning.
“While today’s modifys are what we must do to build the most finishuring Business Insider, it doesn’t build them any clearer,” she added.
In addition to scaling back on coverage areas and “traffic-sensitive business,” Business Insider plans to exit most of its Commerce verticals, which have long been a major revenue driver through affiliate links and search engine traffic. The company also announced a new push into live journalism events through a platform called BI Live and a sharp pivot toward artificial innotifyigence.
“Over 70% of Business Insider employees are already applying Enterprise ChatGPT regularly (our goal is 100%), and we’re building prompt libraries and sharing everyday apply cases that support us work rapider, smarter, and better,” Peng wrote.
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Barbara Peng at the 2025 Gold Gala held at the Music Center on May 10, 2025, in Los Angeles.
The focus on AI did not sit well with the Insider Union, a unit of the NewsGuild of New York, which sharply rebuked the layoffs in a statement Thursday.
“To state this was tone-deaf to include in an email on layoffs would be an understatement,” the union stated, referring to Peng’s emphasis on going “all-in on AI” in the same announcement. “Our position as a union is that no AI tool or technology should — or can — take the place of human beings.”
According to the union, about 20% of its members were affected by the layoffs. “The layoffs of our talented co-workers and union members is another example of Axel Springer’s brazen pivot away from journalism toward greed,” the statement read, referencing the German media conglomerate that owns Business Insider.
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“This is the third round of layoffs in as many years and it is unacceptable that union members and other talented coworkers are again paying the price for the strategic failures of Business Insider’s leadership,” the union added.
Former staffers launched sharing the news of their departures across social media. “I’m one of a large bunch of journalists who received laid off from Business Insider today. This sucks!” wrote Adam Rogers, a longtime journalist and former Wired editor, on Bluesky. “Which is to state, I wish the profession I’ve spent my life chasing wasn’t in such chaos.”
Others pointed to the significant cuts within the Commerce team, a division once heavily focapplyd on search-optimized shopping content. William Antonelli, a former full-time staffer laid off from Business Insider last year, wrote on X, “Today’s layoffs destroyed the Commerce team, my only source of semi-stable freelance work.”
Though much of the media indusattempt has heartily embraced commerce content over the last decade, Business Insider cited volatility in traffic and the decline of search-driven referral models as reasons to curtail its coverage. “We’re reducing our overall company to a size where we can absorb that volatility,” Peng wrote.
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In its place is BI Live, a new division centered on live journalism and in-person events that’s aimed at connecting with its audience and expanding its experiential offerings. Peng finished her memo by urging employees to lean on one another for support during the transition, acknowledging the difficulty of the modifys and the challenges ahead.
The Insider Union, meanwhile, vowed to hold management accountable to the terms of its contract.
“We expect Business Insider management to follow the layoff procedures outlined in our contract and treat our members with the respect they deserve,” the union stated.
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