Zillow calls itself “AI-native.” It just cut 500 jobs and won’t say whether AI was the reason.

Zillow laid off more than 500 people on Tuesday, about 7% of its staff and its largest cut of the year. The Seattle property company made the move one day before it reports quarterly earnings. It has spent the year telling investors it is becoming an “AI-native” company. It will not say whether AI had anything to do with the cuts.

Chief executive Jeremy Wacksman framed the decision as housekeeping. In a blog post, he said it was about “ensuring we have a disciplined cost structure and getting more efficient, with the right people in the right positions,” and little else. Growing at scale means the company must “work differently than we do today,” he wrote.

Growing and cutting at once

What makes this awkward is that Zillow is not struggling. First-quarter revenue rose 18% to $708m, GeekWire reported, against an industry growing just 2%. Profit jumped to $46m from $8m a year earlier. Wacksman says the company keeps outperforming a flat housing market.

So the cut looks less like a rescue and more like a squeeze on costs. Zillow has been spending heavily on rental listings, loan officers, advertising and legal bills. It told investors in May that spending would ease in the second half. Payroll is one of the faster ways to make that happen, and its earnings guidance on Wednesday may show it.

The AI question it won’t answer

The silence on AI is conspicuous. In April, Wacksman told real-estate executives that Zillow was retraining staff to use AI, with gains that were “small, but they’re compounding,” Real Estate News reported. In May, he went further on an earnings call: “We are rapidly becoming an AI-native company.”

Yet asked directly whether AI shaped Tuesday’s layoffs, the company said nothing. Both GeekWire and Real Estate News put the question to it. Neither got an answer. That reticence is now a pattern. AI has become the reason companies most often give for cutting jobs, and the reason many are careful not to give.

Zillow is not alone in the dance. Patreon cut a fifth of its staff while its boss insisted AI was not the cause. Monday.com trimmed jobs even as it grew. It fits a broader wave of tech cuts where firms hedge on whether the technology is doing the cutting.

Pressure from other directions

There is more than efficiency at play. Zillow’s shares have fallen more than 47% this year despite the strong results, a gap the finance chief called a “dislocation,” or temporary mispricing. Law firms are trawling for shareholders to join a proposed class action. This month it goes to trial in an FTC antitrust case over a $100m deal for exclusive rental listings on Redfin’s sites.

The wider property-tech sector is contracting too. CoStar has cut its Homes.com sales team, Better’s founder stepped down as chief executive this week, and Rocket trimmed staff after buying Redfin. Whether or not AI is quietly reshaping these companies, the industry is rethinking how many people it needs. Zillow’s earnings on Wednesday will show how deep the discipline goes.