Inside Meta, employees are facing 28 days of uncertainty before layoffs hit.

• AI has become a hiring buzzword, and four employees explained how they added it to their job titles.
• An AI engineer said showcasing side projects was pivotal to transitioning from software engineering.
• Two non-technical Microsoft employees said having a humanities background was a strength.

AI is the buzziest word on the job market — and many workers want to know how to pivot into it.

As many technical workers upskill to stay on the cutting edge, others are moving into AI-focused roles from entirely different industries.

Many companies are pouring an eye-watering amount of money into AI, cutting some roles while adding new positions tied to the technology.

Against that backdrop, moving into AI could be a way for workers to future-proof their careers as the employment market reshuffles. AI engineers, consultants, strategists, and researchers rank among the top five fastest-growing roles in the US, according to LinkedIn's Jobs On the Rise 2026 report.

There's no single path into AI, and Business Insider spoke with four workers who took very different ones. Read on to learn how they pivoted their careers.

Natasha Crampton, Microsoft chief responsible AI officer

Natasha Crampton got her start as an attorney and is now Microsoft's first chief responsible AI officer.

Her job includes working side-by-side with engineering, sales, and research teams to ensure they uphold principles as they build AI systems. It also includes external work, such as helping establish new laws and standards in the space,

Crampton studied information systems in addition to law, and said she always had an interest in the intersection of technology, law, and society. During the strictly legal phase of her career, she said she always worked on technological issues, such as helping Microsoft draft contracts.

She said people looking to move into tech from other fields should start by using the technology themselves. She added that many technical skills are learnable, so coming from a different background shouldn't limit someone's ability to help shape it. She said, "a huge amount of the value" lies at the intersection of technical knowledge and insights from the social sciences.

Georgian Tutuianu, Hubspot AI engineer

Georgian Tutuianu has had several transitions in engineering, from structural to traditional to software to AI at HubSpot.

Tutuianu said that his ability to get technically in the weeds was an asset during the interview process, and showed he had experience with AI.

He also highlighted that his résumé has a section dedicated to personal projects. Tutuianu said he included one AI project, but it was enough. He said it came up naturally in the interview because he was asked about a time he used or built an AI agent.

"It was a juicy project where I could talk about it, and that was good enough," Tutuianu said.

Tutuianu said he also had to do a take-home coding assignment and review it with the hiring manager afterward, but there was no algorithmic component to the interview.

"Instead of the typical software engineering way that these interviews go, which is 'go solve this algorithm in front of me,'" Tutuianu said. "It's more of 'can you build the things that we care about? Show me."

Jai Raj Choudhary, StackAI engineer

Jai Raj Choudhary transitioned from a data-focused role to an AI engineer at AI agent startup StackAI.

The 24-year-old said he got his job by reaching out to StackAI's cofounder multiple times on LinkedIn. Choudhary said he had used the company's platform as a student, so he messaged the cofounder and started posting about StackAI, offering advice to the company.

He said he thinks he got offers from StackAI was because he understood data quality, the edge cases for the clients, the matrix, and the failure modes of the AI model or any LLM systems that were being used.

He said moving to San Francisco, where 9-9-6 culture existed, helped open his opportunities in the space.

"It's not like a 9-to-5 cushy job," Choudhary said. "We work 9-to-9, six days a week. You wake up, you think about the problem that a client had, and you sleep thinking about what is not fixed yet."

Also, taking a job at a startup that helped him grow and devoting himself to continuous learning made a big difference. Choudhary said he spent hours studying every day.

Brit Morenus, Microsoft senior AI gamification program manager

Brit Morenus, a 37-year-old senior AI gamification program manager, studied English, communications, and marketing in college. She started at Microsoft about 13 years ago as an executive assistant, and for the first five and a half years at the company, she was a contract worker.

She later moved into a role focused on gamification — using game mechanics to teach and market Microsoft's products.

She spent about a year getting certifications that taught her about game mechanics, and in that position, she became a full-time employee. Six years later, she had the opportunity to start gamifying learning about AI, and spent three months learning about it.

Her advice to others who want to transition is to resist letting fear keep you from stepping outside your comfort zone. She also said that with AI roles, you need to learn how it works, not just use it. Morenus added that she doesn't regret her English degree because it's now more important than ever to understand how to apply the English language to AI.

"A lot of it is more English language than it even is AI," Morenus said.

Did you pivot into an AI role? We want to hear from you. Contact the reporter via email at aaltchek@insider.com, or via secure-messaging platform Signal at aalt.19.

• Meta told staff on Thursday that it planned to eliminate 10% of its workforce.
• Inside the company, employees are bracing for weeks of limbo as they wait to find out who will be cut.
• Meta employees responded internally with a mixture of questions, concerns, and jokes.

Welcome to "28 days of hell."

That's how one Meta employee characterized the tech giant's announcement that thousands of jobs will be cut on May 20. Employees flooded internal forums with similar posts, many of which were filled with anxiety, dark humor, and questions as they wait to learn who will be out of a job.

"How are you motivating yourself to work for the next 1 month with layoffs confirmed?" one person posted on the anonymous workplace app Blind, in a section just for Meta employees.

Someone else replied, "I'm motivating myself to do stuff that I can put on my resume for my next job lol."

In a memo sent to staff on Thursday, Meta said it shared some layoff details earlier than usual because the news had already leaked. The company plans to cut around 10% of employees next month and close 6,000 open roles.

"I know this leaves everyone with nearly a month of ambiguity, which is incredibly unsettling," wrote Meta's chief people officer Janelle Gale.

For some Meta employees, the fact that company leadership acknowledged layoffs brought some relief. The layoffs had been so widely discussed internally that the announcement helped ease some uncertainty, according to one employee who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

One of the top comments under Gale's internal Meta post was a picture of an elephant, a reference to leadership addressing the elephant in the room. Reuters first reported Meta was planning sweeping layoffs in March, and employees have been speculating on the extent of the cuts in the weeks since.

"elephant addressed!" commented another employee. Another posted a picture of an envelope that read: "Addressed to: "ELEPHANT."

Others said that having to wait almost a month to find out who would be affected created anxiety. One person posted that this was their first week at the company. "It might be goodbye for me," they wrote.

Another employee told Business Insider that the announcement added pressure for them to deliver results over the next month because it's unknown which teams will be affected by the cuts.

"I'm a little stressed about making impact in the next month," they said.

Despite a sense of added pressure, it's not the employee's first go-around with cuts at the company. The worker said they're going to continue working as usual, assuming the worst while trying to make the most of the next month as they wait for further updates.

"I assume I'm always two months away from being laid off, no matter what leadership says, so I'm going to continue to operate as usual," the employee said.

Employees also commented on Gale's internal post with questions.

One person asked if Meta staff would receive their August 15 stock payouts, which are part of some employees' compensation packages. Gale said that impacted employees would have a termination date prior to the August vest and would therefore not receive it.

"Because of the timing of the notifications, we will have just had the May 15 vest. There are some instances, based on work location, where people will remain employed through the August 15 vest," Gale wrote. Another employee thanked Gale for the clarification.

Another employee asked if travel would be restricted the week of May 20. "We are not restricting travel company-wide. VPs will share team-specific guidance," Gale responded.

'I feel more anxious about surviving'

On the Meta employee section of Blind, some users asked why Meta couldn't offer voluntary buyouts. Microsoft on Thursday offered one-time early retirement buyouts to thousands of its long-time employees, and Google has extended the same offers to staff across some orgs.

Many posts were from users asking others for information about which groups might be affected.

In a longer post, one user said the downside might be surviving the cuts.

"I feel more anxious about surviving this layoff," they wrote, recalling several rounds of layoffs at the company since 2022.

"Because we all know it's just gonna get worse for those of us who are left behind and have to absorb even more work, amongst other declining factors in this sad fearful company," they wrote.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Hady Kfoury, the founder and CEO of Naya, a Middle Eastern-inspired food chain. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I created Naya to share the authentic Middle Eastern flavors I grew up with, in a modern and fast-casual way. Today, we have 43 locations. We're adding 12 more this year, and 25 next year. Our goal is to reach 200 locations by 2030.

It takes a lot of work and it's a competitive environment.

I'm very proud that I'm a CEO and still so hands-on. I work a lot — and I'm not saying this is a healthy lifestyle.

I wake up around 6 a.m.

I try to have a peaceful hour before the rest of my family wakes up. Recently, I've been exercising in the morning because I find it difficult to do it after work, especially if I get home late. So I try to work out between 6:20 and 6:50.

I call my mom at 6:50 a.m. every morning

I call my mom usually every day at 6:50 a.m. We speak for about five to 10 minutes.

My mom is an unbelievable cook and she hosted a lot growing up. She would have 20 to 100 people over for dinner and cook everything from scratch, with flower arrangements and everything. She's a great resource when it comes to understanding the food trends in Lebanon.

I don't eat breakfast during the week

Monday through Friday, I drink tons of coffee but no breakfast. On weekends I eat a heavy breakfast. I don't know why, but that's how my body works.

I wake up my kids and my wife prepares breakfast for them. Then we leave home by 7:50 a.m. and walk to school. My children go to a French International school. Lebanon was a French colony for many years and it was my first language. So I wanted to pass that down to my kids.

I refuse to have an assistant

Our office is next to Grand Central and I head there after dropping my kids off around 8:15 a.m.

I refuse to have an assistant and I schedule everything myself. I'm very into routines and habit. I don't want to have to talk to someone right after I finish a call. I'd rather take a half-hour break and tackle my emails first. It would be very hard to have someone schedule my day and not know what I really need between meetings.

I go to Naya every day

We're surrounded by roughly eight or nine restaurants within a few minutes walking distance. So I go to one every day.

I switch up a lot, but my go-to order is a chicken kebab with a lot of tahini. 70% of our sales go to chicken shawarma. So I try to have that as well, to confirm consistency.

I try and be as incognito as possible. If I go during a lunch rush, I avoid talking to the team and just evaluate the experience. The quality of the food is extremely important.

Sometimes on my way to work, I'll go into a restaurant before opening. I try to make it feel like I'm a partner — not the boss — and everything is business as usual. I ask workers if anything is bothering them, how things are moving, and then I do some spot checks on food quality and cleanliness.

I have a lot of calls to import ingredients

I don't want to turn Naya into an import-export business but I'd love to get 20 to 30% of our products to come straight from Lebanon. We need to be authentic and true to our toots.

It takes a lot of coordination because there's a seven-hour timezone difference. Lebanon also operates differently and that's another challenge. Samples can take time, especially when it's a refrigerted product, so it's a lot of communication.

The tariffs add another layer of complications. I've been trying to negotiate and split the difference between us and our manufacturers. It hasn't been so bad for Lebanon so far, but the uncertainty stresses us.

I have dinner with my aunt once a week

Similar to my mom, my aunt is an unbelievable cook. We have dinner together once a week at her place and she cooks a little bit of everything, but with a big focus on Lebanese food. It's very hard to take her recipes and scale it commercially, but she's an unbelievable person to go for new ideas.

I work 14- to 16-hour days

I try to get home by 7:30 p.m. It's important for me to have dinner with the kids. I try to limit myself to two to three business dinners or events per week. When I have those, I go straight from the office to dinner and then I'm back home by around 10 p.m.

I'm constantly working. I check my emails on the subway and while I'm walking on the streets of New York. Even when I watch TV, I try to shift to something industry-related, either from an entrepreneurial perspective or cooking.

Right now, we're emerging and there's so much going on, that I think my presence is very important. So it's an easy 14- to 16-hours a day.

I used to get copies of every review

I can't sleep well knowing that I have so many unread emails. For almost 17 years, I would get a copy of every customer review from Yelp, Google, or customer support.

About three months ago, I handed it over to someone that I trust who has a great grip on the customer experience. Now she sends me weekly reports on how things are going and I reduced my email intake by at least 150 emails per day.

Sometimes I would get emails with a complaint and even if it was 11 p.m., I would email the general manager and ask what went wrong. I learned I should not do that because it stresses out the team and it's not healthy.

I spend my summer weekends in Connecticut

I try to disconnect as much as possible on the weekends, but I still have to spend four or five hours catching up. I love to work a bit on Sunday just to get ready for Monday before it gets crazy.

I spend my summer weekends in a town called Litchfield, Connecticut. We're part of a community that has tennis courts. I play four or five hours on Sunday. It's a lot of socializing and fun.

I play chess before bed

I was told to stop playing chess before bed and give myself an hour break. I'm hooked on Chess.com, where you can play with real people. It's a great way to end my day.

I try to read half an hour before bed and completely disconnect. I love reading, but I don't do more than five to 10 pages a night.

I go to bed around 11:30 p.m. My sleep score varies, but it never goes above 80. I'm trying to get better at that. I try to avoid wine at night. When I don't drink and I disconnect from screens an hour or two before bed, I sleep much better.

• Miro's CEO says the company is plowing cash into AI subscriptions to help employees level up.
• "Our L&D budget is unlimited tooling," Andrey Khusid said.
• AI adoption is accelerating, and with it come questions about the technology's ROI.

Plenty of companies are still debating whether costly AI subscriptions are worth it. Miro has gone the other way.

Andrey Khusid, cofounder of Miro, the maker of a popular online whiteboard platform, says the company gives employees essentially unlimited access to the latest AI tools as a way to speed up how quickly they learn and work.

That approach is possible, he said, because Miro has been profitable since 2016. The company has raised $476 million to date, and Khusid suggested it does not expect to need more capital.

Khusid framed the spending as a core part of more traditional workplace training. "Our L&D budget is unlimited tooling," he said.

Rather than asking employees to learn on their own time or pay out of pocket, he said, Miro wants that experimentation to happen inside the company, as a shared effort. He later added that there should still be a clear business case for buying any tool.

Miro's strategy is part of a wider shift in tech, where AI adoption is moving from optional to expected. A new study from engineering intelligence platform Jellyfish, based on data from more than 700 companies, found that 64% now produce a majority of their code with AI assistance. Tech giants like Google are pushing employees to use AI tools more aggressively, and Microsoft has begun tying AI usage to performance evaluations. As a result, AI fluency is quickly becoming a core workplace skill rather than a nice-to-have.

Still, Khusid says many executives ask the wrong question about AI ROI. Rather than judging the tools on individual productivity gains or subscription costs, he said Miro is trying to focus on whether the company is moving faster overall.

The company tracks projects through what he described as a "discover, define, deliver" process and measures how long it takes to move from one stage to the next. The goal is to compress that timeline as much as possible.

"The most important metric from my perspective is velocity of innovation," Khusid said. "If you don't innovate fast enough, you're out of the game."

Khusid said he doesn't think the way companies use AI today is necessarily the end state. He said it will take at least until the end of this year, or even next year, to see what a workplace shaped by these tools really looks like. At that point, Miro will take a harder look at which tools are worth the price tag.

For now, he said, Miro is already seeing time savings across engineering, product, and design. That's not always the case, though. Better tools speed code generation, he said, but code reviews can still bog down projects.

"Humans have to read it," Khusid said. At least for now.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at mrussell@businessinsider.com or Signal at @MeliaRussell.01. Use a personal email address and a non-work device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• A Cognizant study suggests 93% of jobs across the workforce are impacted by AI in some way.
• While AI could replace some jobs entirely, it will likely change the work that makes up many other roles.
• What tasks would you like to pass off to AI? What tasks do you enjoy? Take our survey below.

AI is coming for your job — or at least part of it.

A January study from IT services company Cognizant, which analyzed 18,000 workplace tasks, found that 93% of jobs are affected by AI to some degree. In the US, that could result in roughly $4.5 trillion of human labor shifting to AI — and it's happening at a faster rate than expected.

Cognizant projected in 2023 that 90% of jobs would be impacted by 2032. Now, a slightly elevated level of disruption is arriving about six years ahead of schedule. The pace of exposure has surged, too. Instead of rising 2% annually, it's now accelerating at closer to 9%, the report found, with AI's potential impact across occupations coming in 30% higher than earlier estimates.

While there are plenty of concerning predictions about AI replacing jobs entirely, there's also the possibility that the technology will allow many workers to spend more time on certain tasks and offload others to AI.

Given the assumption that AI is going to take at least some part of your job — if it hasn't already — we want to know what you would be happy to pass off, and what tasks you want to keep.

Take our survey below:

• Companies like HP and IBM have signaled they're replacing jobs with AI.
• In February, CEO Jack Dorsey announced that Block was eliminating approximately 40% of staff.
• Klarna's workforce has halved in the last four years, and its CEO says it will shrink more.

Worries about AI one day replacing human workers have intensified in recent years — and as it turns out, that future has already arrived.

MIT released a study last year that found that AI can already replace 11.7% of the US labor market. The study utilized a labor simulation tool called the Iceberg Index, which models 151 million US workers and measures how AI overlaps with skills in each occupation.

As AI starts to replace human workers and companies invest heavily in the tech, companies have been increasingly open about the role AI adoption is playing in recent layoffs. However, while some companies have directly cited AI as a reason for workforce reductions, others have vacillated with their messaging, leaving ambiguity around the exact reasoning and whether AI is directly replacing workers.

Even as some companies replace human workers with AI, they might end up hiring more people in other roles because of it. A World Economic Forum survey found that 41% of companies globally are expected to reduce their workforces over the next five years because of AI. Meanwhile, tech jobs in big data, fintech, and AI are expected to double by 2030, the WEF said.

Here's a list of companies that are replacing — or signaling they may replace — humans with AI.

Amazon

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has said that AI-driven efficiency gains would shrink the retail giant's workforce in the coming years — but in the company's two recent mass layoffs, Jassy said the cuts were about culture, not AI.

"Our ambition is to be the world's largest startup," Amazon executives wrote in two memos viewed by Business Insider in January. "That means doubling down on a culture of ownership, speed, and experimentation — which requires us to continue evolving how we're structured."

An Amazon spokesperson also previously reiterated to Business Insider that the cuts last October were not driven by AI.

When the October layoffs were announced, Amazon's senior vice president of people experience and technology wrote in a blog post that the move reflected a continued effort to run the company "like the world's largest startup." The SVP, Beth Galetti, also referenced a need to be leaner in the age of AI.

"This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we've seen since the internet, and it's enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before," Galetti wrote in the post.

Atlassian

Atlassian announced cuts of 1,600 jobs in March, totaling about 10% of its global workforce. The move comes as the Australian-American software company says it is restructuring to focus on AI and enterprise growth.

In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said the reduction was part of a broader effort to reposition the business for what CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes described as the "AI era."

"It would be disingenuous to pretend AI doesn't change the mix of skills we need or the number of roles required in certain areas. It does," Cannon-Brookes wrote in a message to employees.

On the "20VC" podcast in October last year, prior to the cuts, Cannon-Brookes said he planned to have more engineers at the company in five years.

"They will be more efficient, but technology creation is not output-bound," Cannon-Brookes said.

Block

In a post on X last month, billionaire and Block CEO Jack Dorsey said he was slashing nearly half of Block's workforce, cutting its over 10,000-person staff to under 6,000. The move came as he said business was strong and profits were growing, but a new way of working was emerging.

"We're already seeing that the intelligence tools we're creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company," Dorsey said in his memo on X.

In the company's earnings call that followed the memo, Dorsey said that more companies will follow suit in using AI to drive efficiency gains. Block is already ahead of the trend that "all companies will eventually" adopt, the CEO said.

Fiverr

Micha Kaufman, the CEO and founder of Fiverr, said last September that the company was slashing roughly 30% of its workforce. The cut would affect about 250 team members, and the freelancing platform had 762 full-time employees as of 2024, according to an SEC filing.

The CEO said that the cuts were needed to help turn Fiverr into a leaner and faster "AI-first company."

Kaufman said in a staff memo last April that AI was "coming for your jobs," and in May, he told Business Insider that Fiverr would only hire people who know how to use AI.

"If you don't ensure that you sharpen your knives, you're going to be left behind. It's that simple," Kaufman said.

HP

HP said it's reducing the size of its corporate workforce as a result of AI initiatives. In an earnings report last November, the company said it plans to cut between 4,000 and 6,000 jobs by the end of 2028, estimating the changes would save around $1 billion.

HP's earnings presentation at the time said part of its strategy was to cut costs through "workforce reductions, platform simplification, programs consolidation, and productivity measures" and to increase customer satisfaction, innovation, and productivity with "artificial intelligence adoption and enablement."

IBM

Arvind Krishna, CEO of IBM, told The Wall Street Journal last year that it had replaced hundreds of human resources employees with AI.

More recently, the company announced last November that it would cut thousands of workers in the fourth quarter of 2025, affecting a "single-digit percentage of its global workforce." Its CEO, Arvind Krishna, said the company is shifting priorities to hire more people around AI and quantum. He also said the company plans to increase hiring among recent college graduates over the next year.

Krishna has also said AI adoption has led to the company hiring more employees in programming and sales.

In 2023, Krishna told Bloomberg that IBM had halted or slowed hiring for back-office roles, like in human resources, that could be replaced by AI.

"I could easily see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period," he told the outlet at the time.

Klarna

Klarna's CEO says its workforce has halved over the last four years and will shrink further in the coming years.

In an interview with Harry Stebbings on the "20 VC" podcast on Monday, Sebastian Siemiatkowski said there are about 3,000 employees at Klarna, and he expects the company's workforce to drop below 2,000 by 2030. The company had 7,000 employees in 2022, he said.

The CEO said the reduction is a result of layoffs and "natural attrition," which is when the company doesn't replace workers who leave.

Siemiatkowski said on Monday that "human connection" will be vital for the company, and jobs involved in that will not be replaced by AI.

"Those jobs will remain, but for the rest it's going to be definitely smaller," he said.

Klarna declined to comment further when contacted by Business Insider. A spokesperson previously said that its AI assistant handles the equivalent workload of 853 full-time agents, up from 700 at launch. The spokesperson said it was saving the company an estimated $58 million annually.

Salesforce

Salesforce cut fewer than 1,000 workers in February, including employees from marketing, product management, data analytics, and its Agentforce AI product.

In an episode of "The Logan Bartlett Show" released last August, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said the company was using AI agents in its customer support division to replace humans and help the company work through more sales leads.

"I was able to rebalance my head count on my support," he said in the interview. "I've reduced it from 9,000 heads to about 5,000 because I need less heads."

A Salesforce spokesperson told Business Insider previously that Benioff was referencing an organizational transformation that took place over several months to reshape its customer support function.

After deploying Agentforce, the company no longer needed to "actively backfill support engineer roles," the spokesperson said, adding that it successfully redeployed hundreds of employees into other areas of the company, like professional services, sales, and customer success.

Wisetech

Zubin Appoo, the CEO of Wisetech, said the logistics software maker is cutting 2,000 jobs, or 30% of its staff, because of AI-led efficiency.

In a conference call on February 25, Appoo said that AI enables greater productivity in less time and with fewer employees. The Sydney-based company employed about 7,000 people, according to an annual report released in October.

"I am prepared to say this clearly: the era of manually writing code as the core act of engineering is over," Appoo said. The technology is "unlocking levels of efficiency gains across WiseTech that were previously out of reach."

In some parts of the workforce, such as customer service, one in two workers will disappear, he added.

Correction: December 1, 2025 — The bullet points of this article have been updated to clarify Amazon's statements about how AI may affect its workforce.

• After years of decline, the Gap brand recently posted its ninth straight quarter of growth.
• Gap brand CEO Mark Breitbard said he's shifted the company's focus back to basics.
• Gap has regained relevance with millennials while building appeal with Gen Z via viral partnerships.

Danielle Shaw, a 31-year-old living in Los Angeles, said her mom used to dress her in Gap clothes as a kid — and that was her only memory of wearing the brand until about two years ago.

"I went into Gap, and I honestly became obsessed with everything that I tried on," Shaw told Business Insider.

Shaw said she stocked up on basics like sweatsuits and T-shirts. She left with three or four pairs of denim because the fit and price point were "amazing." The brand is now a staple in her wardrobe, and she said her friends have bought in, too.

Shaw isn't the only zillennial embracing the 57-year old brand for the first time. A new wave of shoppers is discovering Gap after years of declining relevance. TikTok is full of influencers showing off their Gap hauls, while buzzy partnerships with artists like Katseye and Young Miko have breathed new life into the brand, once known to be the epitome of American basics.

Founded in 1969 with a simple idea to help customers find a pair of jeans that fit, Gap is leaning back into its roots: affordable, well-fitting essentials.

Gap's focus on younger customers — its target shopper is 25 to 35 — appears to be paying off. Sales rose 5% last year to $3.5 billion, cementing its comeback after years of flat or declining growth. Comparable sales were up 7% in the fourth quarter, marking Gap's ninth straight quarterly increase. Parent company Gap Inc. is riding the momentum too, posting its second year in a row of revenue growth and one of its highest gross margins in 25 years.

Gap's global brand CEO Mark Breitbard returned to the brand in 2020 and has been on a mission to return to basics, reconnect with once-loyal millennials, and simultaneously win over Gen Z.

Now he wants everyone to know: Gap is back.

"It's been a full return to relevance of the brand," said Breitbard, who's been in leadership roles at Gap Inc. — the parent company of Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, and Athleta — on and off since 2009.

Back to the basics

After its '90s peak, Gap Inc. shares hit roughly $52 in 2000, a level it hasn't reached since. Gap's namesake brand started to falter in the 2010s and entered a roughly decadeslong slump in revenue.

As Zara and H&M pushed further into trendy fast fashion and others doubled down on athleisure or premium denim in the mid-aughts, Gap landed in the awkward middle and lost its selling point. Many industry insiders thought that Gap Inc.'s brands couldn't be turned around, UBS analyst Jay Sole said.

Breitbard said the brand used to have awareness and affinity — and people missed the old Gap.

"We moved into this period where we were over corporate and too many products in the store, and too many ideas, and too much discounting — and not enough of our playbook," said Breitbard.

Breitbard said his 2020 tenure began with a major cleanup from the inside out: rounds of layoffs to reduce bureaucracy and reset leadership, store closures in unprofitable markets, a narrower assortment of styles, and a dramatic upgrade in product quality.

The sweats and jeans that once made the brand famous are now "central" to its comeback, Breitbard said.

That renewed focus on classic American style is a major reason the strategy is resonating, Bill Kenney, CEO of brand agency Focus Lab, told Business Insider. Rather than trying to reinvent itself — like when it briefly changed its logo in 2010 — Gap is leaning into what worked all along.

"They're not trying to tell 17 different stories," Kenney said.

The power of viral partnerships

Breitbard said that the brand grounds its purpose in "great storytelling" around big product ideas every season. That includes partnerships with popular artists, which have had a strong impact, especially with younger consumers.

Breitbard said that 2023, Gap's first year returning to positive revenue after its slump, marked the true turning point.

From there, the momentum built with a LoveShackFancy collaboration. By 2024, Breitbard said, a steady "drumbeat" of moves followed.

Lily Comba, founder and CEO of creator marketing agency Superbloom, told Business Insider that she noticed a change when Fabiola Torres was hired as the brand's chief marketing officer that year.

It began with Gap's spring 2024 linen campaign featuring Tyla. In August 2025, the brand followed up with its "Better in Denim" partnership with Katseye — a TikTok-ready moment that featured the girl group performing to 2003 hit "Milkshake." It arrived on the heels of Sydney Sweeney's controversial American Eagle ad, and it positioned Gap as a lighter, more inclusive voice in the denim category.

The Katseye campaign appeared to pay off in store visits, as Gap saw positive visit growth across most of the six-month period from August to January, according to data from analytics platform Placer.ai.

Part of what makes Gap distinct, Breitbard said, is that "we bridge gaps" (no pun intended). Some of its best-selling styles are worn by both mothers and daughters, he said.

For the holidays, the multi-generational choir featured in the "Give Your Gift" campaign reinforced the message that Gap is an American brand, Comba said.

Most recently, its partnership with Puerto Rican Gen Z artist Young Miko felt especially well-timed, Comba said, tapping into the cultural momentum sparked by Bad Bunny's halftime show. She said the choice to team up with Young Miko was "exactly what Gen Z wants."

"That's the beauty of Gap," Comba said, adding that, "they've always made denim; they've always made sweats; they've always made linen; but it's just how they're communicating is evolving."

Although Gap's turnaround is in full swing, Sole, the UBS analyst, said it has to meet the moment in more ways than its marketing. Shoppers want to know they're getting good value for their money, he said.

Gap will have to deliver items that match the price point and identity it has built if it wants to retain the customers it's attracted.

"They have money in their pocket, they're willing to pay, but they want to have real value," Sole said.