Third round of layoffs, more leadership exits hit Krutrim

🎯 Impact Sentiment: Concerning

📋 Summary

• Krutrim, Ola’s AI division, has conducted a third round of layoffs since June, letting go of around 50 linguistics team members and more than 200 overall, including significant leadership exits.
• The layoffs come amid the development of Krutrim 3, a major language model, but have left the linguistics team bare and raised doubts about the project's viability and pace.
• Multiple top executives have left since April 2025, while Krutrim’s products, like its LLM and cloud offerings, have struggled due to limited maturity and traction, reportedly worsened by funding delays.
• Despite raising $50 million and ambitious investment plans, Krutrim’s AI assistant has seen modest adoption, with just 207,000 downloads since June.

💡 JR Insights

• 💼 Implication: Ongoing layoffs and a shrinking talent pool, especially in linguistics and leadership, point to major instability at Krutrim. If you work in AI or linguistics, this is not a company offering job security right now.
• 🚨 Risk: High turnover and skeletal teams jeopardize project timelines and product quality, which can lead to further rounds of cuts or even division shutdowns if recovery doesn’t happen soon.
• ✨ Takeaway: If you're considering a career move in AI, look for companies with stable leadership, consistent funding, and evidence of steady product traction—right now, Krutrim is signaling red flags on all fronts.