lastminute.com
Cite this case
Future Fluent HR, AI Workforce Impact Dashboard. lastminute.com (June 2026): Approximately 25% of the group's workforce; graded Reported; the company names AI as the reason. Source: lastminute.com. Reviewed Oct 7, 2026. https://dashboard.futurefluenthr.ai/case/lastminute-com/
- Reduction
- No count published by the company. lastminute.com said the reorganisation would reduce the group's workforce by approximately 25% across multiple countries, to be implemented by around the end of 2026. Swiss coverage puts that at roughly 400 roles, taking 25% of the 1,628 employees in the company's 2025 annual report; that is reporters' arithmetic, not a number the company stated
- Percentage given
- Approximately 25% of the group's workforce, the company's own estimate, across multiple countries and subject to local consultation with employee representatives
- 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 AI tools across core workflows and a redesigned organisation without saying which teams are affected. No HR-function roles are named
- AI tool
- No tool is named. The release refers to AI tools across core workflows and AI embedded in customer-facing applications, without naming a system, model or vendor
- The workflow
- Workforce-wide across several countries, not HR roles specifically. Included because the company's own ad hoc announcement attributes the reorganisation and the 25% reduction to accelerating AI adoption across core workflows, and its chief executive repeated the link in the same release. Added in October 2026 although announced in June, because it had not been recorded
- Strategic pivot
- Partial. The company is reinvesting the savings in AI teams, data infrastructure and specialist hiring, so some new roles are being created, but it has not said whether any affected employees will move into them. Petazzi committed to supporting colleagues through the transition without describing redeployment or retraining
What happened
lastminute.com, the Amsterdam-registered and Chiasso-based online travel group listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange, announced on June 17, 2026 a reorganisation to establish "the Group's deliberate transition into an AI-powered travel company." Its release joins the technology and the cut: "By accelerating the adoption of AI tools across core workflows and redesigning the organisation to operate at a new standard of efficiency and scale, the Group is creating the structural conditions for this transition," and "the adjustments, as a result of the reorganisation, are estimated to reduce the Group's workforce by approximately 25% across multiple countries." Chief executive Alessandro Petazzi said: "AI adoption in the travel industry has been fast and will only accelerate: AI is changing how customers search, book, and are served, and how the companies behind them are built," adding that moving now would let the company "emerge leaner, faster and with the resources to invest ahead of the curve." The implementation is due to conclude around the end of 2026, with annualised cost savings of about EUR 16 million expected in 2027. The savings are earmarked for embedding AI in customer-facing applications, the data infrastructure needed to scale it, and specialised cross-functional teams to build and run it. The company gave a percentage, not a count; Swiss coverage converts it to roughly 400 of the 1,628 employees in the 2025 annual report.
What HR should take from it
A quarter of the company in one announcement, with the reason stated plainly: lastminute.com is reorganising to become what it calls an AI-powered travel company, and its chief executive says AI is changing how companies like his are built, not just how customers book. That makes it one of the clearest company-level statements in this record, and one of the largest proportional cuts. The detail worth studying is where the money goes. About EUR 16 million a year of savings is earmarked for AI in customer-facing products, the data infrastructure under it and specialist cross-functional teams to run it. So this is a substitution and a reallocation at once: existing roles leave while new, scarcer roles are hired in data and AI. If you are the HR leader in that position, the question your board will not ask and your employees will is whether anyone being cut can move into the roles being created. lastminute.com has not said. If you run something similar, decide that before the announcement, publish the answer, and track it, because a 25% cut that funds specialist hiring reads very differently to the people leaving depending on whether the door to the new jobs was ever open to them. The other lesson is about speed. The company chose to do it in one move, concluded within about six months and across several countries with separate consultation regimes, which concentrates the risk and the works council workload into a single half year.
Why this credibility tier
lastminute.com’s own release of June 17, 2026 joins the two: it is accelerating “the adoption of AI tools across core workflows” and redesigning the organisation, and that reorganisation cuts about 25% of the workforce. Chief executive Alessandro Petazzi says AI is changing “how the companies behind them are built,” which rules out Inferred. No tool is named and no count was given: the roughly 400 in coverage is 25% of 1,628 staff. Part of the savings funds AI hiring, so this is partly reallocation. Naming the systems and a count would lift it.
Graded Reported when added, Oct 2026. The cut was announced Jun 2026.
How the company put it
Names AI as the reason
- Names AI as the reason
- One of several reasons
- Cutting to fund AI
- Mentions AI, no link
- Link only off the record
- Denies AI caused it
- Says nothing about AI
“AI is changing how customers search, book, and are served, and how the companies behind them are built... Moving now gives us the opportunity to emerge leaner, faster and with the resources to invest ahead of the curve.”
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 namedno
- Change measuredNo count published by the companyyes
- Filing or Tier 1 sourcelastminute.com · Filing or company documentyes
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.
- lastminute.com →primary · press-release · Filing or company documentArchived Oct 2026
lastminute.com N.V. ad hoc announcement pursuant to Art. 53 LR, June 17, 2026, "lastminute.com Announces AI-Powered Transformation to Drive Its Next Phase of Growth", https://corporate.lastminute.com/2026/06/17/lastminute-com-announces-ai-powered-transformation-to-drive-its-next-phase-of-growth/, for the AI tools across core workflows, the reduction of approximately 25% of the workforce, the EUR 16 million savings, the reinvestment areas and Alessandro Petazzi's statement, with the full text read through the copy MarketScreener carries; cash.ch (AWP), June 17, 2026, https://www.cash.ch/news/reiseanbieter-lastminute-setzt-auf-ki-und-baut-hunderte-stellen-ab-945976, for the roughly 1,600 staff and the multi-country scope; Netzwoche, June 18, 2026, https://www.netzwoche.ch/news/2026-06-18/lastminute-streicht-wegen-ki-rund-400-stellen, for the 1,628 employees in the 2025 annual report
Open this case in the explorer · How the tiers work · Download the whole record