- Wednesday, April 02, 2025
In order to cut costs, the Gurugram-based food and grocery delivery major has been increasingly using artificial intelligence to automate its customer support functions
By: India Weekly
ZOMATO has let go of as many as 600 customer support associates within a year of hiring them, Moneycontrol reports.
The food and grocery delivery major is reportedly witnessing a slower growth in its food delivery platform, and its quick commerce arm, Blinkit continues to make losses.
To cut costs, Gurugram-based Zomato has been increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) to automate its customer support functions.
A year ago, the company had hired around 1,500 people under its Zomato Associate Accelerator Program in customer support roles.
However, many of these contractual workers did not get renewals at the end of their tenures.
Many of the affected employees are from Zomato’s offices in Gurugram and Hyderabad.
The affected workers were offered a month’s salary as compensation and terminated without any notice period, citing reasons such as poor performance, lack of punctuality among others.
Zomato recently launched an AI-powered customer services platform Nugget, and it is now powering over 15 million support interactions per month for Zomato, Blinkit, and Hyperpure.
A couple of affected employees posted on Reddit that they were fired without any warning or discussion nor provided any opportunity to improve.
Their Slack messengers were deactivated, account taken down within minutes and “you’re out of the org before you can speak for yourself”.
Another user lamented that for Zomato its employees are “nothing more than numbers on a spreadsheet” and when they decide to cut costs your hard work and dedication does not matter.
Zomato has reported slowing growth in its core food delivery business amid an ongoing slowdown in private consumption.
At the same time, its quick commerce vertical Blinkit has been witnessing increasing losses due to rapid expansion amid rising competition in the rapidly growing quick commerce market.
A report by Flipkart and Bain and Company stated that in 2024, more than two-thirds of all e-grocery orders and one-tenth of e-retail spending happened on quick commerce platforms.
Quick commerce is slated to grow at over 40 per cent annually through 2030, fuelled by expansion across categories, geographies, and customer segments, it added.
Last September, Zomato co-founder Akriti Chopra quit after serving the company for 13 years.
A PwC veteran, she played a key role in setting up and scaling Zomato’s legal and finance teams.
