Patreon is laying off 20% of its workforce, or 93 people, CEO Jack Conte told employees Thursday. In a memo to staff that the company shared online, Conte said Patreon’s core business is strong, but the platform has to respond to market changes and adjust its cost structure to remain stable, which is why it needs to make the “painful” but necessary cuts.

Conte wrote that “AI has fundamentally transformed the tech industry” and that the pace of change “has never been more intense.” However, Conte went on to point out that Patreon is not making cuts because it wants to replace employees with AI.

“To be clear about the impact of AI on today’s decision: we are No “We are making the above changes because we believe that AI replaces humans,” he wrote. “The more we’ve learned to use these new tools, the clearer it becomes that they are no substitute for the creativity, judgment, detail-orientation or craftsmanship that our teammates have in abundance, nor do they replace the desire for human connection that we all hold so deeply. That’s my personal opinion, but more importantly, it’s the foundation of Patreon’s strategy: our product vision and business are based on the value of human creativity and connection.”

He continued: “AI has However, it fundamentally transformed the technology industry, including how we work, how we build products, how we communicate, and more. That does have an impact on the way we operate and organize.”

Beyond the staff reduction, Conte said Patreon is also restructuring the way it operates, “flattening” its organizational chart and refocusing teams around its top priorities. Affected employees will receive at least 16 weeks of severance pay, plus an additional week for each year worked, health care coverage through the end of the year and a $1,500 stipend to replace their company laptop.

Last week, Patreon announced that it would partner with internet infrastructure provider Cloudflare to directly block access to AI robots designed to train their AI models on creators’ work without permission. The company said it had to improve its efforts on this front because AI scraping has become more sophisticated. The move came as online publishers and creators grapple with AI companies using their work to train AI models.

Patreon’s latest round of layoffs is the platform’s largest since it cut 17% of its staff in 2022. During that previous round of layoffs, Patreon also closed its offices in Berlin and Dublin.