NEW YORK, April 15, 2026, 07:08 EDT.
- Snap has raised its first-quarter revenue forecast to roughly $1.529 billion, with adjusted EBITDA—an operating profit metric—projected at $233 million. The company reports earnings on May 6.
- The company is set to lay off roughly 1,000 employees—16% of its full-time workforce—and scrap over 300 open positions.
Snap on Wednesday revised its Q1 outlook and announced plans to slash roughly 1,000 jobs, fueling volatility in its shares as the market balanced cost cuts with the company’s fresh focus on AI and smart glasses. The stock had jumped 8.74% to finish at $5.60 the previous session, and premarket trading on Wednesday saw it tack on another 5%-plus gain.
Snap’s latest update zeroes in on a lingering concern: whether the company can bankroll Specs and fresh AI offerings without putting its margins at risk. Management flagged some improvement in first-quarter business trends, but said investors will have to wait until the May 6 earnings call for complete results.
Snap expects to trim its annualized cost base by over $500 million by the back half of 2026, with workforce reductions and the shutdown of more than 300 open positions factoring in. CEO Evan Spiegel, in a staff memo, pointed to “rapid advancements in artificial intelligence” as enabling leaner teams to work faster. The company also revised its full-year adjusted operating expense forecast down to around $2.75 billion, from about $3.0 billion. SEC
Just two weeks after Irenic Capital revealed an economic stake of roughly 2.5% in Snap, the activist investor called on the company to rein in spending, ramp up share repurchases, and sharpen its AI efforts. Portfolio manager Adam Katz argued Snap “should be worth a lot more than $7 billion” if leadership delivers. Reuters
There’s also the product angle. Snap’s Specs division, created recently, inked a multi-year agreement with Qualcomm just last week. The partnership brings Snapdragon XR chips to consumer glasses expected out later this year. It’s a wager on augmented reality—think digital overlays on actual surroundings—breaking out of its niche status.
Snap’s upcoming glasses are set to use on-device AI—so the main software functions happen right on the glasses, not shipped off to the cloud with each request. CEO Spiegel called the next era of computing “more human and grounded in the real world.” Qualcomm, for its part, pitched the partnership as a way to roll out devices that respond on the fly to what’s around you, but keep power draw and latency to a minimum. Snap Newsroom
Snap’s ambitions are bigger than just hardware. In March, the company rolled out AI Clips in Lens Studio, a tool that transforms a single image into a five-second clip. Back in February, Snap reported its direct-revenue operations hit a $1 billion annualized run rate, counting more than 25 million subscribers. For the fourth quarter, revenue climbed 10% to $1.72 billion. Active advertisers jumped 28%, while monthly active users hit 946 million.
Snap has been pushing AR beyond its app, too. Just last week, the company teamed up with the Los Angeles Dodgers to roll out Snapchat camera features and new in-stadium lenses at Dodger Stadium. Chief Marketing Officer Grace Kao noted that, on average, over 215 million users tune in to sports content on Snapchat every month.
The picture isn’t straightforward. When major advertisers cut back, smaller players like Snap and Pinterest feel the hit more acutely, since big marketers still lean heavily on Meta and Google for reach. In February, Emarketer analyst Max Willens noted that Snap’s ads business remains far from cracking the large enterprise accounts. Meta, meanwhile, already scored a notable win in AI wearables with its Ray-Ban smart glasses. Layoffs might shore up margins, but they come with the risk of disruption—especially now, as Snap gears up for its Specs consumer push.
Snap’s restructuring aims squarely at getting to net-income profitability. The bigger moment comes May 6, when the company is set to report full Q1 results. Snap has already guided the market to around $1.529 billion in revenue and about $233 million in adjusted EBITDA.
