I don't see what AI has to do with the layoff story. The first mention of AI is "The company has also embedded AI in its customer contact form" and it appears the author decided to include this for no apparent reason.

The article also has a footnote stating "Updated to remove claims of AI replacing jobs." so I suppose there was probably a stronger - but still invented by the author - claim included that has since been removed.

The original version appeared to claim that they were doing it because AI made the people unnecessary, or at least they might think so.