Hundreds of Google AI Workers Were Fired Amid Fight Over Working Conditions

Over 200 contractors who work on improving Google's AI products, including Gemini and AI Overviews, have been laid off, sources say. Workers enter a building on the Google headquarters campus on July 23, 2025, in Mountain View, California. More than 200 contractors who worked on evaluating and improving Google's AI products have been laid off without warning in at least two rounds of layoffs last month. The move comes amid an ongoing fight over pay and working conditions, according to workers who spoke to WIRED. In the past few years, Google has outsourced its AI rating work--which includes evaluating, editing, or rewriting the Gemini chatbot's response to make it sound more human and "intelligent"--to thousands of contractors employed by Hitachi-owned GlobalLogic and other outsourcing companies.