Google has laid off over 200 contractors who worked on improving its AI product offerings, Gemini, and search AI overviews, according to Wired. Some were told it was part of a "ramp-down" on the project they were working on, but others believe it was due to complaints made over pay and working conditions. These laid-off contractors join hundreds of other AI-related contractors who have been fired from other major AI firms like xAI and Meta in recent months.
For the first half of 2025, AI growth was everywhere, and all the major companies were spending big to try to get ahead. Meta was offering individuals hundreds of millions to join its ranks, and entire companies were swallowed up in the race to be the first to the next big development in AI technology. But while announcements of enormous industry deals continue, there's also a lot of talk of contraction, particularly when it comes to lower-level positions like data annotation and AI response rating.
In the case of Google's latest firings, the contractors mostly worked at GlobalLogic, a software developer owned by Hitachi. Per the report, workers on the 'super rater' program were required to have either a PhD or a master's, and were tasked with moderating AI responses.
Google seemingly didn't need that expertise any longer, though. It has reportedly been working on developing an AI model for rating AI responses, though it's not clear if that's matured enough to take over what the human raters were doing. The Wired report even cites some workers worried "they are being set up to replace themselves."
Instead, many of them believe that it is their complaints over compensation that lead to them being laid off. Wired states that workers "attempted to unionize" earlier in the year to no avail. According to the report, "they allege that the company has retaliated against them." Two have filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board. For its part, Google said in a statement that GlobalLogic is responsible for the working conditions of its employees.
AI developmental companies have been repeatedly accused of using underpaid human workers to classify AI data and rate responses to improve their services. The company Meta invested almost $15 billion to poach their CEO, ScaleAI, was accused of using low-paid workers in Southeast Asian countries to build out its data annotation services. After Meta bought a 49% stake in the company, over 200 of its staff were cut.
Just a few days ago, xAI also announced it was laying off around a third of its data annotation team, amounting to over 500 workers. However, unlike Google, company messaging suggests this is to pivot towards more specialist AI trainers.
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That may mean employment opportunities for some of the AI trainers Google let go, but it does make it clear what a shaky industry this is to get into. The big AI developers don't appear to have a coherent strategy for how to improve their products in the near term and are taking different approaches in doing so.
All the firings come in stark contrast to the major AI developer hiring sprees that companies like Meta went on earlier this year. While low-paid data annotators may have limited employment prospects at the big firms, there is less concern over hiring big names and rising stars for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Although Meta and others have seriously slowed their spending in recent weeks, massive expansion projects in the AI industry continue unabated.
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