Future Fluent HR
Reported

Gambling.com Group

Media · Performance marketing · Ireland (HQ) · announced May 2026

Cite this case

Future Fluent HR, AI Workforce Impact Dashboard. Gambling.com Group (May 2026): 25% of the workforce; graded Reported; the company names AI as the reason. Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Reviewed Oct 9, 2026. https://dashboard.futurefluenthr.ai/case/gambling-com-group/

Reduction
No count published by the company. Its first-quarter 2026 release gives a proposed restructure expected to reduce the workforce by 25%. The company had 599 employees at December 31, 2025 per its annual report, so coverage puts the cut at about 150; that is arithmetic on its own figures, not a number it stated. Savings were expected from the third quarter of 2026
Percentage given
25% of the workforce, the company's own figure in its first-quarter 2026 release and on its earnings call
Share of workforce, worked out
Not worked out: the record has no role count to divide.
Jobs affected
Not specifiedThe company did not say whose jobs went.
HR function
Not broken down by the company. The release describes a restructure of teams across the organisation around AI-first working, with no function or location named, and chief executive Kevin McCrystle told analysts it was not a case of cutting the development team by half. At December 31, 2025 the company reported 374 sales and marketing, 147 technology and 94 general and administrative employees. No HR-function roles are named
AI tool
No tool is named. The company describes adopting AI as the foundational layer of how the organisation operates, AI-first agentic workflows and AI generating 80% of its new code, without naming the systems; the release attributes higher costs partly to increased AI usage
The workflow
Company-wide, not HR roles specifically. Included because the company's own results release names its AI transformation as what the restructure is led by and its incoming chief executive says AI-first working principles enable it
Strategic pivot
Not disclosed. The company describes resetting team structures, roles and processes for an AI-first world and a flatter organisation; it has not published redeployment or retraining plans for the people leaving

What happened

Gambling.com Group's first-quarter 2026 results release of May 14, 2026, furnished to the SEC as a 6-K exhibit, is headed in part "Initiates AI Transformation-led Restructure Expected to Reduce Work Force by 25% and Deliver $13 Million of Annualized Savings." Incoming chief executive and co-founder Kevin McCrystle says in it: "We continue to integrate AI into our workflows and are moving quickly to adopt AI as the foundational layer of how the entire organization operates. This shift to AI-first working principles enables a proposed restructure of teams that is expected to drive substantial annualized cost savings." Chief financial officer Elias Mark adds that "the strategic shift in how we operate internally to have AI be the foundation of our team structures and processes across the organization, allows us to initiate a proposed restructure of teams expected to deliver annualized cost savings of $13 million." On the earnings call the same day, as transcribed by The Motley Fool, McCrystle said the company had proven "the effectiveness of AI-first agentic workflows," was "resetting our team structures, roles, and processes to fit an AI-first world," and was "confident this transition to AI-first ways of working will allow us to move faster and with fewer people." Management said about 80% of new code was generated by AI, that the $13 million of savings is net of higher AI usage costs, that about half would land in the second half of 2026, and that restructuring costs would be around $2.5 million. Asked about the development team, McCrystle said the restructure was not a case of cutting it by half. The same release reported first-quarter revenue of $40.4 million, flat on a year earlier, and lowered full-year 2026 guidance, citing poor search dynamics and regulatory headwinds in the UK and Finland. The company had 599 employees at December 31, 2025 and operates mainly from offices in Ireland and the United States.

What HR should take from it

Gambling.com Group proposed cutting a quarter of its workforce in May 2026 and headed the announcement as an AI transformation-led restructure, with its incoming chief executive saying AI-first working principles made the restructure possible. The scale is what makes it worth reading: 25% in one move, at a company that told analysts AI already writes 80% of its new code and that it is making AI the foundational layer of how the whole organisation operates. The financial setting cuts the other way. The same release reported flat revenue and lower full-year guidance on weaker search traffic and new gambling rules in the UK and Finland, and the chief financial officer put the restructure's annual saving at $13 million net of higher AI subscription costs. So the honest reading is a cost restructure at a business under pressure, explained in AI-first terms the company chose for itself, rather than a measured replacement of roles by a named system. The company gave no count, no functions and no locations, and said on its call that it had not cut its development team by half. For HR leaders the useful lesson is about pairing. A 25% reduction framed as an AI transformation in the same release as a guidance cut invites the question of which one caused the other, and the company has not published the figures that would let anyone answer it. If you are writing a similar announcement, decide which reason is the real one and lead with it, because a reader who finds both will assume the less flattering one.

Why this credibility tier

Gambling.com Group's first-quarter release, furnished to the SEC on May 14, 2026, is headed as an AI transformation-led restructure expected to cut the workforce by 25%, and incoming chief executive Kevin McCrystle says in it that AI-first working principles enable the restructure, so the attribution is the company's own, ruling out Inferred. It stays below Verified because no AI system is named and the company gives a percentage, not a count. The same release cut guidance on weak search traffic and new UK and Finnish rules, so quote the 25% as a cost restructure framed around AI, not as roles a system replaced. Naming a system would lift it.

Graded Reported when added, Oct 2026. The restructure was announced May 2026.

How the company put it

Names AI as the reason

  1. Names AI as the reason
  2. One of several reasons
  3. Cutting to fund AI
  4. Mentions AI, no link
  5. Link only off the record
  6. Denies AI caused it
  7. Says nothing about AI

“This shift to AI-first working principles enables a proposed restructure of teams that is expected to drive substantial annualized cost savings.”

Kevin McCrystle, Incoming Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, first-quarter 2026 results release, furnished as a Form 6-K exhibit, May 2026. Source

Highlighted: the words that tie AI to this cut.

The company or a named executive says AI drives or enables this cut. The tier says how solid the evidence is; this says how plainly the company itself tied AI to the cut. How this is coded

What this case rests on

  • AI tool namedno vendor, product or model named
  • Change measuredNo count published by the company
  • Filing or Tier 1 sourceU.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · Filing or company document

Verified also requires an executive on the record, which is a reading of the source rather than a field. That judgment is in the credibility note.

Gambling.com Group Limited, first-quarter 2026 results release, May 14, 2026, furnished as Exhibit 99.1 to Form 6-K, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1839799/000183979926000099/gamb-q12026xpressrelease.htm, for the restructure, the 25%, the $13 million of annualized savings, and the statements of Kevin McCrystle and Elias Mark; Gambling.com Group Limited, Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2025, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1839799/000183979926000048/gamb-20251231.htm, for 599 employees at December 31, 2025, the breakdown by function and the offices in Ireland and the United States; The Motley Fool, transcript of the May 14, 2026 first-quarter earnings call, https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2026/05/15/gamblingcom-gamb-q1-2026-earnings-transcript/, for the AI-first remarks, the 80% of new code, the net savings and the development-team answer

Reviewed Oct 9, 2026

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