Yotpo lays off 200, partners with Attentive for email and SMS in AI-driven shift

Correction (6pm EST, August 06, 2025): Attentive was named Yotpo’s “preferred vendor” partner to carry on providing SMS and Email solutions for their enterprise customers. Previously, the article stated there was a sale, however after a correction from a reader, we determined there is no public evidence of a sale, instead it is a preferred partnership that is rumored to be worth tens of millions of dollars according to Ctech. The old text has been stricken through for transparency.

200 staff cut, email & SMS sold off, and Yotpo doubles down on AI-powered reviews and loyalty and passes customer base on to partners with Attentive for email and SMS.

Why Yotpo is no longer trying to be an all-in-one platform

This week, the Israeli-founded ecommerce unicorn laid off 200 employees—about 34% of its global headcount—and shut down its native Email and SMS business, selling the customer base to partnering with Attentive in a deal rumored to be worth “tens of millions” according to Ctech. The move is part of a broader shift toward what CEO Tomer Tagrin calls an “AI-native” operating model—and a ruthless refocus on its core: Reviews and Loyalty.

“We’ve decided to stop investing in our native Email and SMS products… this is a painful but necessary step,” Tagrin told staff in a blunt all-hands memo. “Tomorrow’s companies will be smaller, more focused, and much more AI-based.”

The memo didn’t mince words: trying to do everything spread them too thin. Now, Yotpo’s going lean—and very, very AI.

Why Yotpo is cutting 34% of its team

This isn’t Yotpo’s first round of cuts. But it’s the deepest yet, hitting 80 roles in Israel and more across Bulgaria, Poland, the U.S., and Australia, as reported by Calcalist. The goal: cut distraction, cut burn, and build only what Yotpo can dominate.

Rather than compete in commoditized email/SMS tools, Yotpo will now partner with leaders like Attentive (for larger brands) and Omnisend (for self-serve SMBs). Both platforms are working on deep integrations that sync with Yotpo’s remaining stack.

Meanwhile, the company’s doubling down on its most defensible assets—review analytics and loyalty infrastructure—and making them AI-native from the ground up.

What’s really happening under the hood

Yotpo didn’t just cut headcount. It’s restructuring how it builds, ships, and scales. Here’s what that looks like:

• 🧠 Automated review summaries to boost conversions
• 🌍 AI-driven translation support for 50+ languages
• 🔍 Reviews Atlas, a new analytics engine
• 🎯 Predictive loyalty features using real-time data
• 🤖 LLM-ready reviews, primed for future integrations
• 💬 70% of support tickets handled by AI tools
• 📈 90% of marketing campaigns AI-generated
• 👨‍💻 40% of code expected to be AI-written by 2026

According to Globes, the company also acquired an AI team (Ko.AI) to help integrate large language models into its reviews and loyalty tools—think ChatGPT, but for ecommerce retention.

What customers need to know

While Attentive promises to support migration and honor Yotpo pricing for one year, not everything is a one-to-one swap. A transition FAQ notes that some features will not be available at launch, including:

• “Click to Redeem” loyalty flows
• AI-generated review summaries
• Conversational review collection
• UGC display on product/cart pages

That said, new functionality is being co-developed between Yotpo and Attentive, like syncing real-time loyalty data, review sentiment segmentation, and triggered messages across SMS, email, and push.

For operators, it’s a mixed bag: More AI, but less control. Fewer native tools, but better focus.

Yotpo joins the AI-driven reshaping of white-collar work

This isn’t just a Yotpo story. It’s another step in the dismantling of white-collar work as we knew it.

With 200 roles cut, including teams in Israel, the U.S., and Europe, Yotpo is following a broader tech company playbook: fewer humans, more automation, and offloading non-core ops to specialized vendors.

Yotpo didn’t just kill a product line. It sold the team’s work to Attentive, outsourced its delivery, and automated what it used to staff. AI is now handling 70% of support tickets, building 90% of marketing campaigns, and will soon write 40% of new code.

Sound familiar? That’s because it mirrors the broader trend gripping ecommerce:

• AI replaces entry-level knowledge work
• Product teams get gutted in favor of integrations
• Headcount gets swapped for APIs, bots, and BPOs

Tagrin said the quiet part out loud: “Tomorrow’s companies will be smaller, more focused, and much more AI-based.” The subtext? If you’re a mid-level SaaS PM, CS manager, or email marketer… your job could be on borrowed time.

Operator POV: Focus wins, but churn and copycats are real

For ecommerce operators (brands):

This move strips out the “all-in-one” simplicity many brands liked. If you built your retention stack around Yotpo’s native Email, SMS, Reviews, and Loyalty, you’re now facing a multi-vendor mess. Expect:

• ❗ Extra work integrating Attentive or Omnisend
• 📉 Temporary disruption to loyalty-driven flows and UGC placements
• 🤔 New limitations: not all features are 1:1 with Yotpo’s old tools

That said, there could be some upside. By unbundling and going deep on Reviews and Loyalty, Yotpo could actually give you better outputs, not just more features—especially if you’re running lean and want AI to pick up the slack.

For ecommerce SaaS and retail tech operators:

This is a cautionary tale and a green light at the same time.

Yotpo is publicly admitting that being a full-suite platform was killing velocity. By offloading commoditized tools and focusing on defensible IP, they’re shifting from feature bloat to product moat.

But beware: this pivot opens the door for fast-moving SaaS competitors to scoop up disillusioned customers. If you’re building tools in this space, here’s your edge:

• 🛠 Build best-in-class specific tools, not bloated suites
• 🔗 Prioritize integrations over ownership
• 🤖 Lead with AI-native features, not bolt-on fluff

Yotpo is betting on depth, not breadth. That’s smart. But the transition will test retention, UX, and trust across thousands of brands. If they don’t execute cleanly, the churn wave will be real—and someone else will catch it.