Brave lays off 27 employees

Web browser and search startup Brave has laid off 27 employees across the different departments, TechCrunch has learned. The company confirmed the layoffs but didn’t give more details about the total headcount left and the reason for the layoffs. It represents a significant portion of the company’s staff — PitchBook estimates that Brave has around 191 employees.

The new round of job cuts comes nearly 10 months after the company let go of 9% of its total workforce in October 2023. At that time, the company said that these cuts were to part of its efforts for “cost management in this challenging economic environment.”

After adding several crypto-related features, Brave has heavily leaned into AI with its product releases this year. The company launched its AI assistant, Leo, on desktop, Android, iPad, and iPhone in a staggered release cycle.

The company integrated its own search results with its Leo chatbot in June. This meant users can ask about the score of a sports match, or get additional context about an article they are reading without leaving the page. The company is also selling a Leo Premium subscription for $14.99 per month for access to better models and higher limit rates.

Earlier this month, the company started letting all users link their own models to use in the browser after testing the ability for a few months.

Brave didn’t specify if the cost of developing and running these AI-focused features was one of the motivations behind this wave of layoffs.