SenseTime Restructures: Layoffs and Business Adjustments

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the artificial intelligence enterprise SenseTime, Xu Li, Chairman and CEO of SenseTime, recently issued an internal letter to all employees, mentioning for the first time the company’s newly established “SCO – LM – CNI” integrated strategy. At the same time, it was announced that around this strategy and core resources, a more centralized and efficient organizational structure will be built to accelerate the process of making organization and management more agile.

After the all-staff email was sent out, SenseTime immediately began organizational restructuring and layoffs. Currently, the layoffs are still ongoing, with the scale of the layoffs unspecified.

SenseTime has focused on retaining two businesses related to large-scale models and equipment while adjusting other business lines such as security, autonomous driving, and healthcare. ‘Some organizational structures have been completely cut down; entire departments have been slashed,’ said one SenseTime employee who noted significant adjustments.

The compensation given this time is N+1. ‘Last year it was N+2.5,’ said an employee. Due to the layoffs this time being a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach without giving breathing room, it has sparked dissatisfaction among employees.

According to the financial report of SenseTime, in the first half of 2024, SenseTime achieved revenue of 1.74 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21%; net loss decreased from 3.123 billion yuan in the same period last year to 2.457 billion yuan.

Among them, generative AI has become SenseTime’s main source of revenue. In the first half of 2024, SenseTime’s generative AI business reached 1.051 billion yuan, a significant increase of 255.7% compared to last year and contributing over 60.4% to total revenue.

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