WiseTech Global is cutting 2,000 jobs, 29% of its workforce, in what may be the most explicitly AI-justified restructuring of 2026. CEO Richard White stated flatly that "the era of manually writing code is over." The stock jumped 11% on the announcement.
This is a logistics software company telling its own engineers that AI has made their jobs obsolete. The irony is not subtle. WiseTech builds the tools that help global supply chains operate, and it is now applying the same optimization logic to its own headcount. The 29% cut is among the deepest percentage reductions of any company this year.
The market's positive reaction tells the story of 2026 in miniature: investors reward companies that cut aggressively and frame it as AI-forward strategy. Whether the remaining 71% of the workforce can maintain product quality with AI assistance remains to be proven.