The comments hit at some, but not all, of the underlying drivers. I'll add a more comprehensive view and let you draw your own conclusions:

* Their balance sheet paints a messy picture. Their gross profit per quarter doubled from 23Q1 ($668mn) to 26Q2 ($1.35bn), but their net income has been a consistent loss - from -$13mn in 23Q1, to -$42.6mn in 26Q2. The company has generally failed to turn a meaningful profit after considering operating expenses, reflecting misaligned priorities of leadership.

* Their headcount similarly whipsaws of late. In 2021, it was 8.8k; by 2025, it was 13.8k; in the middle of COVID, it was as low as 6.4k. Even after these job cuts, their headcount remains roughly flat from 2025.

* Cutting jobs to invest in AI when you're already slowly bleeding cash isn't exactly a winning strategy. Atlassian's products have the benefit of organizational "stickiness", and their push to a cloud-only SaaS model hasn't gone all that well if you read the IT rags (lots of uniquely complicated migrations that don't transition well 1:1 to SaaS).

* That said, pointing to AI while cutting jobs isn't a bad play when you're courting investors, many of whom doubt the long-term viability of the XaaS model when AI can slop up boilerplate and internal-only solutions on the fly. If they're doing it to genuinely cut costs and try and right the ship, fingering AI isn't a bad cover.

* Except the reality is most of Atlassian's leadership gets their comp in equity, which has taken a serious hit of late on the markets just as vesting schedules wind down and leadership is changing over. I'd be on the lookout for SEC Form 4's from insiders in the coming weeks to confirm whether or not this was the case.

The reality is that the "AI layoffs" ploy is almost exclusively a cover story for corporations reasserting dominance and power over workers after a few (comparatively) good years (WFH, higher pay increases, wage gains, flex-time, etc). Every single one of these entities obviously has more work than people to do it, but if they can squeeze 90% of the workforce for 110% of the hours, that's a net gain for the corporation and a net loss for workers.

Efficiency, over-hiring, right-sizing, AI; it's all bullshit smokescreens for greed, plain and simple. Don't be fooled by narratives to the contrary.