Why Monday.com's 20% Staff Cut Is a Wake-Up Call for Your Project Management

By Brian Hanson · Published 2026-07-23 · Updated 2026-07-24 · 5 min read

A modern office desk with a laptop showing a project management dashboard and automated workflow icons.

Key takeaways

Monday.com is cutting 20% of its staff to prioritize AI development.
Small businesses should audit their workflows to remove manual data entry.
AI project management can replace the need for manual status updates and task assignments.
The value of software is shifting from the user interface to automated logic.
Business owners should reallocate human time from admin tasks to high-value activities like sales.

The Shift From People to Processes

Monday.com just announced they're cutting 20% of their workforce. That is roughly 400 employees. They're doing it to shift their focus toward artificial intelligence. According to reporting from TechCrunch, the company plans to reinvest those savings into high-growth areas like AI development and automated workflows. When a software giant that manages work for 225,000 customers decides it needs fewer people to run the business, it's telling you something about how your own business should run.

I look at this as a clear signal for every small business owner. If the tools you pay for are stripping back their human staff to let software do the heavy lifting, you shouldn't be paying your own team to do manual data entry inside those same tools. The goal isn't just to use a project management board. The goal is to have the board manage the project for you.

What a Leaner Operating Model Actually Looks Like

For a 10-person team, AI project management for small business means moving away from the status check meeting. Most business owners spend half their week asking people for updates. Monday.com's pivot suggests that the future of these platforms is an environment where the software tracks the progress, flags the delays, and even drafts the responses without a human clicking a button.

When a company like Monday.com cuts 20% of its staff, they aren't planning to do 20% less work. They're betting that AI can fill that gap. You should take the same bet. If you have a project manager whose primary job is moving cards from In Progress to Done, you're paying a human salary for a feature that now comes standard in most software packages. Look at your payroll. See where you're paying for manual labor that a $30 a month subscription can handle.

Audit Your Manual Workload

I'd start by looking at your current project boards. Most people use these tools as digital sticky notes. That's a waste of money. You need to wire up your tools so that one action triggers the next. For example, when a client signs a contract, your project management tool should automatically create the folder, assign the task to the account manager, and send the welcome email. If a human is doing those three steps, you're falling behind.

The transition Monday.com is making confirms that the value isn't in the interface anymore. The value is in the logic. You're no longer just buying a place to store tasks. You're buying an engine that moves work through your pipeline. If you don't turn that engine on, you're basically paying for a Ferrari and pushing it down the street by hand.

3 Steps to Modernize Your Workflow This Week

You don't need a degree in computer science to fix this. You just need to stop accepting manual work as a given. Here is how I'd approach it right now.

Identify the Update Trap: Look at your project boards. Find any task that requires a human to manually tell another human that something is finished. Use a simple automation (a recipe in Monday.com terms) to notify the next person in line automatically.
Stack Your Inputs: Connect your email or your lead forms directly to your project board. Every time a new customer reaches out, the project should be born automatically. No more copy-pasting names and phone numbers from an email into a spreadsheet.
Sand Down the Friction: Ask your team which task they hate doing because it's repetitive. Usually, it's something like naming files or generating weekly reports. These are the exact tasks Monday.com is building AI to handle. Bolt on an AI tool to summarize those project updates for you instead of reading through 50 comments.

The Reality of the Shift

The software world is getting leaner. That's a good thing for you because it means the tools you already pay for are getting smarter and more capable of handling the boring stuff. But it's a risk if you keep your internal processes stuck in 2019. If the software is doing 20% more, your team should be 20% more focused on high-value tasks like sales or customer service, not administrative overhead.

I'd watch how the other major players like Asana or ClickUp respond to this. We're likely to see a race to see who can remove the most human clicks from the process. Your job is to make sure your business is ready to plug into those automations as they roll out. Don't wait for a consultant to tell you to automate. Just look at where the software companies are putting their money. They're putting it into AI, and you should be putting your team's time into things AI can't do yet.

If you want to see exactly how to wire these tools up so they work while you sleep, I'm showing the exact steps in my upcoming training. We'll strip back the jargon and just focus on the outcomes that actually put time back on your calendar.

Frequently asked questions

Does this mean I should fire my project manager?

Probably not. It means you should change their job description. Instead of having them manually move tasks and ask for updates, have them focus on strategy, client relationships, and optimizing the AI workflows.

What is an automation 'recipe'?

A recipe is a simple 'if this, then that' instruction you give your software. For example, 'if a status changes to Done, then send a notification to the manager.' It requires no coding.

Is AI project management expensive for a small team?

No, most of these features are being built into the subscriptions you already pay for. The cost is usually just the time it takes to set up the rules one time.