Autodesk, a manufacturer of design software, announced on Thursday that it would eliminate around 1,000 jobs, or 7% of its global staff, in order to reallocate funds to its cloud platform and artificial intelligence initiatives.
The company, which provides 3D animation, visual effects, and production management solutions for movies and games, stated that the reductions will mostly affect its customer-facing sales teams.
The announcement caused shares to rise more than 3%, boosting a stock that saw little movement the previous year and has had a poor start to 2026, with a 13% decline thus far.
As of January 31, 2025, Autodesk employed over 15,300 people. The reorganization, according to the statement, is the “final phase of its sales and marketing optimization,” an attempt to improve sales channels and streamline customer interaction in order to promote sustainable development and operating margin expansion.
In an effort to improve customer interactions and increase pricing control and sales, the company has been transitioning from a traditional channel-centric sales strategy to a subscription and usage-based transaction model.
For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026 and the entire year, Autodesk now anticipates that billings, revenue, adjusted operating margin, adjusted earnings per share, and free cash flow will surpass the upper end of its earlier projections.
According to a regulatory filing, the overall pre-tax restructuring charges are estimated to be between $135 million and $160 million, mostly because of employee termination benefits.
The business, which competes with Adobe and PTC and offers software like AutoCAD, plans to finish the reorganization plan by the end of its fourth quarter of fiscal 2027.
According to Layoffs.fyi, a website that tracks IT job cutbacks, 269 companies let off almost 123,000 workers in 2025.
