Google parent company Alphabet plans to lay off roughly 12,000 staff as it looks to align its business with opportunities in artificial intelligence.

That came just days after fellow tech giant Microsoft announced its own round of layoffs and a similar prioritization of AI-linked products.

In an email sent to staff on Friday, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said layoffs would come across geographies and functions of the business. He said that the company has grown significantly over the last two years, but that it had been hiring for a “different economic reality.” The decisions about which staff to lay off were made following a “rigorous review” to ensure people and roles were aligned with the company’s biggest priorities.

Pichai did not specify what those priorities were, but did say that AI was a “substantial opportunity” across its products and services, hinting at new announcements that were soon to come.

Layoffs in the U.S., Pichai said, would be begin immediately, with ones in other countries coming in the near future to ensure the company adheres to local labour laws.

Alphabet had, thus far, been able to avoid the layoffs that began plaguing the tech sector last year, which hit companies reliant on advertising and ecommerce especially hard as the signs of a recession began. The company had, however, said it was slowing down hiring activities, something Pichai reiterated when he presented Alphabet’s disappointing Q3 financial results, which were largely due to decreased spending on advertising. This also led to speculation that it would be a matter of if, not when, layoffs eventually came down.

The news came just a few days after Microsoft announced its own round of job cuts. In a regulatory filing made on Wednesday, the company said it would be laying off 10,000 staff, roughly 5% of its global workforce. The company had previously laid off 1,000 staff in the fall.

In an email to staff, CEO Satya Nadella said while customers had been accelerating purchases of technology and hardware during the pandemic, that activity had slowed down in a recessionary environment when people are looking to “do more with less.”

Like Alphabet, Nadella mentioned artificial intelligence in his email, saying building a new AI-based computing platform would be important for the company in the coming year.