Bed Bath and Beyond to See ‘Significant’ Headcount Reduction

Bed, Bath and Beyond CEO Marcus Lemonis has suggested in an earnings call that the company may be looking at reductions in headcount. 

Sharing on the call that he needed to be “brutally clear and honest with everybody, both internally and externally,” Marcus said that the company’s increased use of AI could impact the number of employees it needs to operate

“With the formation of AI outside of our business and now being deeply integrated in our business, and us only wanting to take on capabilities that we think add value, we’re going to experience significant reduction in head count,” he says.

This follows the company increasing the use of AI throughout its business after filing for bankruptcy in 2023. 

AI-enabled recovery 

Bed, Bath and Beyond has been on the path to recovery for some time. In April 2023, the company filed for bankruptcy, closing all of its physical stores – resulting in company-wide layoffs. 

Since then, the name and company IP has been revived by Overstock.com, with the company increasing its focus on AI as part of its growth strategy.

In a January letter to shareholders, Marcus said the company was building a “connected intelligence layer that links commerce, services, insurance, warranties, financing, home attributes, geographic trends and customer behaviour. 

AI, he says, is the operating layer that “activates this fabric,” helping the company enhance its financial performance through staffing efficiency, agentic commerce and improved marketing productivity. 

“AI drives precision, putting the right product at the right place, at the right time, at the right price,” he continued. 

This strategy appears to be paying off for the company, with Bed, Bath and Beyond reporting 7% year over year growth for its net revenue in the first quarter of 2026 – making its first quarter of significant revenue growth in 19 quarters. 

In a statement announcing the financial results, Marcus said they showed: “That the work we’ve been doing to stabilise and rebuild the business is taking hold.”

“We delivered real year-over-year revenue growth, something we haven’t seen meaningfully in several years, while continuing to take costs out of the business and operate more efficiently,” he continued.

AI layoffs on the rise

The number of employees losing their jobs to AI has been increasing. In the first quarter of 2026, nearly 80,000 tech workers lost their jobs – with 47.9% of those layoffs being attributed to AI. 

However, some critics have suggested that many companies may be unfairly blaming AI for these layoffs. 

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, shared at the AI Impact Summit in India in February 2026: “I don’t know what the exact percentage is, but there’s some AI washing where people are blaming AI for layoffs that they would otherwise do, and then there’s some real displacement by AI of different kinds of jobs.”

Other business leaders have suggested that AI could create further opportunities for employment – such as Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA.

He believes AI Agents will function more like hyper‑attentive managers than substitutes for employees, saying during a panel at the Stanford Graduate School of Business: “Your agents are harassing you, micromanaging you and you’re busier than ever.

“We’re doing things faster; we’re doing it at a larger scale; we’re thinking about doing things that we never imagined.”