Squarespace lays off 19% of staff, about 300 jobs, as AI reshapes website building

Squarespace, one of the web's best-known website building and hosting platforms, is laying off approximately 19% of its global workforce, a cut of around 300 jobs. The Verge first reported the layoffs, and a representative for the company confirmed the numbers to TechCrunch.

What the company said

Jeff Seedman, a public relations specialist representing Squarespace, told TechCrunch that the company is "restructuring its organization and reducing its global workforce by approximately 19%, representing around 300 employees." The goal, according to Seedman, is to "simplify how we operate, sharpen our priorities and enable the company to move faster" as Squarespace positions itself for its "next phase of growth." The report does not detail which teams or regions are affected, or what severance is being offered.

AI has upended website building

According to TechCrunch, the restructuring lands in the middle of a major shift in how websites are created. Generative AI tools, often described as "vibe-coding" builders, can produce functional front-end designs from short, plain-language prompts, dramatically lowering the effort required to get a working site online.

The money flowing into this category underscores the pressure on incumbents. Rival web host Wix bought the AI site builder Base44 for $80 million, TechCrunch notes. Lovable, a comparable prompt-driven product, raised a $400 million Series C round in August at a $13.3 billion valuation. Google has also recently launched Stitch, a feature that lets users quickly generate user interface designs.

Squarespace's own AI bets

Squarespace has not stood still on AI. It launched an AI design tool called Blueprint in 2024, and it recently announced Forma, an upcoming AI-native platform that users can currently join a waitlist for.

A company already in transition

The layoffs arrive at a company whose recent history has already been turbulent. Squarespace was founded in 2004 and went public in 2021 at a $10 billion valuation, but it struggled to generate lasting public-market enthusiasm in the years that followed. In 2024, it went private again through a private equity deal valued at $7 billion.

Why it matters

A 19% workforce reduction is a deep cut for a company of Squarespace's scale, and it is one of the clearest signals yet that generative AI is forcing restructuring on established website platforms rather than just fueling startups. Users can now generate working sites from a prompt, and investors are assigning multibillion-dollar valuations to AI-native challengers while legacy players cut costs and reorganize. For the roughly 300 employees affected, the impact is immediate. For the wider industry, the move suggests that long-standing web building companies view shrinking their operations and racing to ship AI-native products like Forma as the price of staying competitive.