Stack Overflow, a question-and-answer forum for programmers, is laying off 28% of its workforce following ChatGPT's disruption to the industry.
The company's CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar said the layoffs are a move to maintain a path to profitability.
"This year we took many steps to spend less. Changes have been pursued through the lens of minimizing impact to the lives of Stackers. Unfortunately, those changes were not enough and we have made the extremely difficult decision to reduce the company's headcount by approximately 28%," Chandrasekar said in a blog post.
The CEO also noted the "ongoing threats to customer budgets shifting due to the macroeconomic pressures impacting the entire tech industry."
While the company did not directly address how artificial intelligence bots affected its business, comments swirled online from people quick to point the finger.
"People stopped using Stack Overflow after ChatGPT was released," said tech expert Tony Dinh on X, alongside a chart of Stack Overflow's plummeting traffic coinciding with the AI-tool's release. Others on X shared similar graphics.
Developers utilize Stack Overflow for help with coding and questions about tools they use, and industry experts weigh in with answers and assistance.
Large language models (LLM) like ChatGPT are equipped with knowledge from massive amounts of data, which they use to offer answers, information and resources.
In July, Stack Overflow launched its own LLM, OverflowAI, though it is not clear how it competes with other solutions out there.
In his blog post, Chandrasekar called out his company's "monumental efforts to successfully launch OverflowAI."
"As we refine our focus, priorities, and strategy it's to better meet the demands of our users, customers, and partners as part of this commitment to product innovation and the continued momentum of OverflowAI both for Stack Overflow for Teams and on our public platform," said the CEO. "Our new team structure best positions us to succeed when it comes to these initiatives."
ChatGPT can now hear you, speak to you and search the internet
Until now, the system was only able to retrieve data up to September 2021 and read text conversations.
