Zillow cuts 500+ roles ahead of Q2 earnings release 

Zillow announced today that it was laying off "just over 500 employees" in a move intended to "ensure we are organized to continue winning into the future," CEO Jeremy Wacksman wrote in a blog post. The news was first reported by Inman.

The company previously cut about 200 roles in late January, attributing those staff reductions to performance issues.

A need 'to work differently': In his August 4 post, Wacksman touted the portal's financial performance before adding that "continuing to grow at scale requires us to work differently than we do today." The company has consistently reported double-digit revenue growth over the past several quarters, with mortgages and rentals accounting for much of those gains. 

But maintaining that momentum, Wacksman said, necessitates "ensuring we have a disciplined cost structure and getting more efficient, with the right people in the right positions." 

Zillow is scheduled to release its Q2 earnings report tomorrow.

Strong financials, poor stock performance: Revenue gains, while impressive, have not been enough to boost Zillow's stock price. While the company's share price was up slightly today, it has fallen more than 47% so far this year. 

CFO Jeremy Hofmann told investors in May that the decline reflected a "dislocation," or temporary mispricing, but that hasn't stopped some law firms from fishing for disgruntled shareholders interested in joining a proposed class-action lawsuit.  

Wall Street analysts expect Zillow to announce revenue of roughly $758 million for the second quarter tomorrow, which reflects the mid-range of the company's outlook.

Leveraging tech? During the company's Q1 earnings call in May, Wacksman noted that Zillow was doubling down on artificial intelligence, telling investors, "We are rapidly becoming an AI-native company."

Just a couple of weeks earlier, he had told an audience of real estate executives that the company was not only embedding AI in consumer and agent tools, but was increasingly using the tech internally. Zillow employees, he said during a presentation at the T3 Leadership Summit, were being retrained to incorporate AI into their jobs — improvements that, so far, "are small, but they're compounding," he said at the time.

While AI-related layoffs have accelerated across many industries over the past year, it's not clear if the tech contributed to today's announced staff cuts. 

Real Estate News has reached out to Zillow asking whether AI played a role, and if the layoffs were targeted at specific teams or divisions. The company has not immediately shared a response.