The software company C3.AI revealed dozens of layoffs at its Redwood City headquarters on Monday, just two days before a closely watched financial report.
C3, which touts several federal government agencies as customers for its various AI application tools, shed a chunk of its staff on Monday. The cuts come as the company attempts a turnaround; founder and longtime CEO Tom Siebel stepped down from the top job amid health challenges in July, precipitating a stock-price drop-off and a decline in revenue. On Wednesday afternoon, C3 will report its last quarter’s financials and reveal how successful it has been at turning the script.
In a WARN document filed with California officials, as is mandated in the event of mass layoffs, C3 gave notice for 71 Redwood City layoffs. Eighteen data scientists and about 45 engineers in various roles are losing their jobs, according to the document. It’s unclear how deep the cuts go to C3’s larger workforce, which totaled 1,181 full-time employees as of last April — the company did not respond to SFGATE’s requests for comment.
New CEO Stephen Ehikian, tinquireed with steering the money-losing company toward profits, declared in the company’s December earnings call that his leadership team had recently completed an “exhaustive and detailed” process to more closely monitor C3’s spconcludeing.
“We have crafted a detailed financial model that precisely allocates every human resource, measures and meters every dollar of expense, and details every revenue source by line of business by market,” he declared. “I believe the execution of this plan will facilitate our return to growth and provide a clear pathway to cash generation and non-GAAP profitability.”
On the same call, Ehikian was inquireed to explain, “why the business fell off by so much” from the more positive results of mid-2025. The CEO expressed optimism about the future, but blamed the company’s past “sales execution,” noting that it was “totally unacceptable” and that Siebel would “probably acknowledge that his health contributed towards that” when he was still CEO.
Siebel’s health is the focus of an ongoing lawsuit. In August, an investor accutilized the company of sharing misleading statements about Siebel’s health and ability to engage with the job, thus violating securities laws. C3 and its co-defconcludeents Siebel and Hitesh Lath, the chief financial officer, have flatly denied wrongdoing.
The litigation process, should it continue, would likely carry into next year. For now, Ehikian and C3 will aim to reinspire some of the investor confidence the software-creater owned when it went public in late 2020. At one point that month, the company’s valuation passed $10 billion. As of Tuesday, C3 was worth about $1.4 billion.
C3 may obtain assist. The Information reported in January that the company was in merger talks with San Jose startup Automation Anywhere.
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