Better.com layoffs and AI

Vishal Garg, Better.com's Founder and Head of Product, Platform and Innovation, in the Q3 2026 results release (November 9, 2026): "Since my return, we have executed $3.5 million in annualized savings from delayering our management and corporate structure, with AI agents and dashboards. We intend to scale without rebuilding those management layers." On the Q3 call the same day: "we had to focus on changing the culture, increasing effort and productivity and lowering our cost base. To that effect, since my return, we have delayered our management and corporate structure by letting go of managers across the company for over $3.5 million of annualized savings. Those management responsibilities are now performed by AI agents and dashboards ... These cuts are not temporary. They are roles forever eliminated by AI and will not return as we scale volume."

Better.com (Better Home & Finance), the New York online mortgage lender, cut staff in October and early November 2026 after founder Vishal Garg regained control of its board on October 5: its weekly scorecards first reported headcount reductions in sales and mortgage operations on October 27 and the removal of management layers on November 3, without saying how many people lost their jobs. On the November 9 results call Garg said the managers let go had been replaced by AI agents and dashboards and called them roles forever eliminated by AI, and he said the Home Lending Associate sales role is now done by Better's AI loan agent, Betsy. Better also gave lowering its costs toward break-even in a weak mortgage-rate market as the reason, so AI is one of several causes it named. It reported the cuts only as yearly savings (about $3.5 million from removing managers, within $30.4 million of completed savings), never as a number of roles, so no figure is counted.

Roles the sources name:

Managers across the company (VP, director and senior manager layers), per founder Vishal Garg on the Q3 call; Home Lending Associates (a sales role that prepared customers for loan officers), now done by the Betsy AI agent; Sales and mortgage operations staff (headcount efficiencies in the Week 3 scorecard)