A firm working with Google has quietly laid off more than 200 contractors tasked with training and improving its AI products, including Gemini and AI Overviews. According to a new report from Wired, the cuts took place in at least two rounds last month and blindsided workers who say they received little to no notice before being terminated. Some affected contractors had recently begun working to form a union for more consistent pay and benefits.
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The affected workers were part of a group of “super raters” employed by GlobalLogic, a Hitachi-owned outsourcing firm that has supplied Google with human evaluators for years. Their job was to rate, rewrite, and refine AI outputs to make Gemini sound more human, as well as test Google’s AI-generated search summaries for accuracy and usefulness. In other words, these were the people teaching Google’s AI to act less robotic. Now, many of them are out of work.
“I was just cut off,” said Andrew Lauzon, a recently terminated rater who joined GlobalLogic in March. “I asked for a reason, and they said ramp-down on the project — whatever that means.”
The layoffs come after months of worker frustration over pay disparities, job insecurity, and increasing pressure to hit performance metrics that some say compromise quality. According to multiple workers, GlobalLogic has been gradually ramping up automation in the very systems these raters are helping train, leading some to believe they are effectively working on their own replacements.
Internal documents seen by Wired suggest that Google’s goal is to automate response rating entirely, potentially reducing the need for human oversight in the future. “We’re like the lifeguards on the beach,” one rater told the publication. “We’re there to make sure nothing bad happens.”
Adding to the tension, workers say that attempts to unionize were met with resistance. Several claim that GlobalLogic deleted online discussions about pay parity and eventually banned social channels used by remote workers. Two contractors have filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging retaliation and wrongful termination.
Google, for its part, emphasized that these individuals are not direct Alphabet employees. “As the employers, GlobalLogic and their subcontractors are responsible for the employment and working conditions of their employees,” a Google spokesperson told Wired and reiterated to Android Police. GlobalLogic declined to comment to Wired. For now, the remaining raters say morale is at an all-time low — and they worry they could be next on the chopping block.
