Major tech firms including Oracle, Amazon, Meta, and Dell have driven 2026 layoffs well beyond 2025 totals, with trackers such as Layoffs.fyi reporting over 131,000 cuts by early October versus 122,000 for all of last year. Companies explicitly cite artificial intelligence adoption for efficiency gains, workforce restructuring, and reallocation of spending toward AI infrastructure and large language model development, with AI referenced in roughly one-third of events. This pattern of big-tech-led reductions, alongside smaller ongoing cuts at firms like HubSpot and Amazon in recent weeks, underpins the strong market-implied odds for higher annual totals, though late-year moderation in hiring or unexpected demand shifts could still influence the final count.