Groupon Is Cutting a Quarter of Its Workforce to Fund Its Rebuild as an AI-Native Company

Groupon announced on May 26, 2026 that it will eliminate up to 400 positions globally, nearly a quarter of its workforce, as part of a restructuring plan approved by its board of directors on May 21 and tied directly to the company's strategy to rebuild itself as an AI-native company.

The cuts affect both employees and contractors and are expected to occur largely by the end of the third quarter, though timing in certain jurisdictions is subject to local legal requirements and consultation processes.

Groupon had 1,734 total employees as of December 31, 2025, according to its most recent SEC filing, making the 400-position reduction one of the most significant workforce reductions in its recent history. The company eliminated 500 jobs in January 2023 as part of a separate restructuring.

The financial case for the restructuring is specific. Pre-tax charges of $7 million to $13 million are expected, primarily from employee severance and compensation benefits.

Annualized cost savings are projected at $20 million to $25 million. Of the $10 million to $12 million in gross savings Groupon expects to realize in 2026, up to 50% will be reinvested in marketing, AI infrastructure, and talent density.

Project Foundry and the AI-Native Strategy

The restructuring is the operational consequence of Project Foundry, Groupon's initiative to embed AI agents into the core of every function across the company, enabling it to "operate with the speed required to succeed in an AI-native world," as the company described it in its May 7, 2026 Q1 earnings release.

CEO Dusan Senkypl was direct about the current state of that transition in the earnings release. Every team across the company was adopting AI, he said, but Q1 results did not yet reflect that work.

The restructuring announced this week is the organizational response to that gap: reducing headcount in functions where AI is replacing human capacity, and reinvesting the savings in the infrastructure and talent required to accelerate the transition.

Groupon is also evaluating additional material cost-reduction and automation actions under Project Foundry, which would require separate board approval and are expected to be completed by the end of 2027. The scope of those additional actions has not been disclosed.

As a result of the restructuring, Groupon raised its full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance from $70-75 million to $75-80 million, a signal that the financial benefit of the workforce reduction is expected to materialize in 2026 even after the reinvestment into AI infrastructure.