On June 3, 2026, CTech reported that Israeli ad-tech firm Skai, formerly known as Kenshoo, laid off about 100 employees, roughly 20% of its workforce, in Israel and globally. In a statement, the company said it "launched several artificial intelligence-based products and made several changes to the way work is conducted in light of new technologies, with an emphasis on artificial intelligence." Leadership framed the cuts as "a broad adjustment process that enables a transition to a configuration suited to the current era." This is the second round of significant cuts at the company, following an ~80-person reduction in 2024.
Skai is a 20-year-old performance marketing platform founded in 2006 as Kenshoo by Yoav Izhar-Prato and Nir Cohen. The company rebranded to Skai in 2021. Its software helps brands run paid advertising campaigns across Google Ads, Meta, Amazon Ads, TikTok, and Apple Search Ads, and it has historically counted Volkswagen, Sephora, John Lewis, and Best Buy among its customers. Skai raised roughly $155 million across rounds from Sequoia Capital, Tenaya Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, and Arts Alliance. The company was widely reported as unicorn-adjacent during the 2014 to 2017 ad-tech boom, but its most recent disclosed valuation is approximately $236 million on roughly $79 million in annual recurring revenue, a markdown of about 75% from its peak.
The AI framing is unusually candid here. Most companies announcing AI-related layoffs in 2026 dressed the cuts up as "restructuring" or "operational efficiency." Skai named AI directly. The structural reason: Skai's whole business is middleware between advertisers and the major ad platforms. Over the last three years Google (Performance Max), Meta (Advantage+ Shopping), and Amazon (Performance+) have built AI-powered campaign optimizers directly into their platforms, eating much of what third-party tools like Skai used to provide. When AI inside the platforms replaces the same function, advertisers stop paying middleware vendors for the same service.
The cut also fits a broader pattern. Israeli tech has shed roughly 4,000 jobs across at least eight companies in the last 30 days, including Amdocs (2,500), Wix (1,000), BigID (150), AI21 Labs (110, 61% of staff), Rapyd (100), Lightricks (75), and Minute Media (60). Skai is the latest. The "AI" label is doing real work in some cases, like Skai's, and providing cover for post-2020/2021 hiring overhang in others.