Pipedrive cuts most of its Estonian staff: traffic moved to AI

On October 29, Pipedrive, the Estonian maker of a sales CRM, announced the biggest restructuring in its history. CEO Paulo Cunha told staff that the changes affect most roles: "fewer teams, fewer layers and fewer offices". Every employee will be told individually within two days whether their job is at risk.

How many and where

According to ERR, about 70% of the 380 employees in Estonia are affected: 219 people in Tallinn and 48 in Tartu, including analysts, designers, marketers and other teams. The group employs about 800 people. Äripäev reports that the Portuguese office is closing. The company would not say whether the Tallinn and Tartu offices will remain, citing different employment laws in different countries.

Pipedrive was founded in 2010 by five Estonians and about a decade later became one of Estonia's unicorns, valued at a billion dollars or more.

Why

Cunha's explanation matters more than the numbers. Small businesses increasingly ask AI which software to choose instead of searching Google. The free web traffic that drove growth for years has dropped sharply, and replacing it with paid ads costs more. Earlier measures, more investment in product and marketing with lower costs, were not enough. Cunha stresses that people are not being replaced with AI to save money.

Next, the company will focus on its core CRM, become smaller and faster, and build an AI sales assistant that records conversations, keeps data up to date and suggests the next step.

This is a rare case of a company naming AI in search, not AI at the desk, as the reason for layoffs. People ask ChatGPT "which CRM should I choose" and get a ready answer without visiting any websites. For any business that gets customers from search, the lesson is simple: it is no longer enough to rank in Google; you also need to show up in AI answers.

Sources: ERR News, ERR in Russian, Postimees.