Future plc job cuts hit TechRadar, Tom's Guide and Android Central as search traffic falls after Google's AI Overviews

Future plc is making job cuts at TechRadar, Tom's Guide and Android Central, its second round of layoffs this year, as its tech sites lose search traffic after Google put AI Overviews at the top of results. Press Gazette reported on 5 October 2026 that staff in the UK, US and Canada were told in the past week that their roles are at risk. Chief executive Kevin Li Ying's memo to staff, seen by Press Gazette, puts it down to search, not to AI doing anyone's work: "there have been significant, ongoing changes in our industry, primarily driven by the decline in search. Therefore, we have reluctantly informed a number of our colleagues this week that their roles are at risk of redundancy." Future has not said how many roles are affected. The Verge reported that the whole Android Central team, six people listed on its about page, was let go; Future says it will keep publishing the site. In January Future made 45 editorial redundancies at TechRadar and Tom's Guide. The traffic numbers are Press Gazette's, from Ipsos iris: against July 2024, the month before AI Overviews launched in the UK, Tom's Guide's UK audience is down 55 percent and TechRadar's 35 percent. Future expects revenue of about £707 million for the year to 30 September, down 4 percent, and has paused its share buyback. Earlier this year it said 15 percent of group revenue came from brands that still depend on Google for most of their audience. These are job cuts caused by AI taking readers away, not by AI doing the work, so they are an article and not a counted AI job loss. The employer-attributed AI job cuts on record are in the AI layoffs tracker on this site.