UiPath Inc. today disclosed plans to lay off 10% of its workforce, or about 420 employees, in a bid to increase operational efficiency.

The restructuring comes two years after the company’s previous round of job cuts. In late 2022, UiPath let go 6% of its workforce as part of an effort to reduce costs. The layoffs were preceded by another restructuring initiative a few months earlier that affected 5% of the company’s employees.

NYSE-listed UiPath provides a popular RPA, or robotic process automation, platform of the same name. The platform can observe how employees carry out a chore such as copying data between two applications and then create a software workflow, or bot, to automate the process. UiPath’s user base includes more than 10,000 organizations, about a fifth of which pay at least $100,000 annually for its software. 

In a regulatory filing, the company detailed that its latest workforce reduction is expected to cost between $15 million and $20 million. The job cuts are part of a broader restructuring initiative with a total expected cost of up to $25 million. UiPath expects to incur the charge by next April.

“This workforce reduction is aimed at further driving operational efficiency and customer centricity,” UiPath stated in the regulatory filing. “These changes reflect efforts to reshape the organization by streamlining the Company’s structure, particularly in operational and corporate functions, better prioritizing our go-to-market investments and focusing our research and development investments on artificial intelligence and driving innovation across our platform.”

The company is heavily prioritizing AI as part of its product roadmap. Last year, it introduced a suite of AI capabilities called Autopilot for its flagship RPA platform. The offering promises to ease a variety of tasks ranging from creating task automation workflows to testing software code.

In July, the company expanded Autopilot with a new set of AI features. One of the new capabilities allows developers to generate task automation workflows using natural language prompts. Another feature can generate simple applications based on an interface sketch.

A few days before debuting the new AI features, UiPath reported first-quarter earnings and revenue that topped analyst expectations. However, the full-year sales forecast that the company released in conjunction fell short of the consensus estimate. The lower-than-expected forecast set off a more than 35% drop in its stock price. 

The same day it posted its quarterly results, UiPath reappointed co-founder Daniel Dines as chief executive officer. He succeeded Rob Enslin, a former Google LLC and SAP SE executive. Dines returned to the helm of UiPath after spending about five months as chief innovation officer. 

Photo: UiPath