Mumbai, April 1: Zomato, India's leading food delivery giant, reportedly laid off around 600 employees without any prior notice. The Zomato layoffs decision was taken by the company for using AI for automation instead of relying humans for the customer support roles. Zomato aimed to automate its customer service with the AI platform "Nugget" which was launched in February this year. The customer support staff was laid off, citing that they delivered poor performance and punctuality.

Zomato layoffs was implemented amid company facing slow growth in the food delivery business and suffering losses in its quick commerce unit. Zomato reduced its workforce after weeks of launching "Nugget," an in-house artificial intelligence platform that resolved customer problems. It was reportedly developed over three years. Layoffs 2025: 24,401 Tech Employees Laid Off by 92 Companies, Automobile, Retails, Entertainment and Other Sectors Also Affected.

Zomato's Nugget is an AI-powered platform capable of handling multiple customer queries. It can handle over 15 million monthly support interactions across the Zomato, Blinkit and Hyperpure platforms every month. The AI platform can deliver up to 80% of customer queries without human intervention. Zomato reportedly hired around 1,500 employees under ZAAP (Zomato Associate Accelerator Programme) for customer support roles.

Within a year, Zomato offered these employees the potential to move to different roles such as support, operations, sales, supply chain, and programme management. However, most of the customer support associates did not renew their contracts. The Zomato staff said that the ZAAP employees, located in Hyderabad and Gurugram, were told to resign from their positions without notice. Eidos Montreal Layoffs: Video Game Studio Laying Off Around 75 Employees As Mandate Comes to an End.

Zomato laid off ZAAP employees, who received a month's salary as compensation, were not given any formal notice period. One of the customer support associates affected by the layoff said that the majority of the employees were hired under the ZAAP program and were let go without any clear explanation across the Gurugram and Hyderabad offices. The person also pointed out that the atmosphere was "really tense."  Previously, Zomato laid off around 100 employees in 2022, resulting in a 4% reduction in the workforce across the marketing, tech, and product departments. 

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 01, 2025 05:19 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).