Nine to axe 30 jobs at the Age and SMH due to ‘extreme’ AI disruption

Nine Entertainment will cut about 30 newsroom jobs at the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, citing what it described as the “extreme state of disruption” caused by artificial intelligence.

According to a monitored public feed based on reporting by The Guardian Technology, staff were told on Tuesday that the company planned to reduce roles through a mix of voluntary and targeted redundancies. The cuts affect two of Australia’s best-known newspapers, both owned by Nine.

Nine’s managing director of publishing, Tory Maguire, told employees the move was not being framed simply as a cost-saving measure. Instead, she described it as part of an “evolution” intended to help the business adapt to structural change in the media industry.

The latest reduction adds to the pressure already facing traditional newsrooms as publishers reassess staffing, workflows and investment in the face of fast-moving AI tools. Nine has now linked the changes directly to disruption it says is being accelerated by the technology.

The company has not given a detailed breakdown of the roles to be removed, but the plan outlined to staff indicates a combination of employees leaving voluntarily and others being selected for redundancy. The exact timing of the cuts was not specified in the feed summary.

The announcement comes amid wider concern across media organisations about how AI is reshaping journalism, publishing and content production. While some companies have embraced automation to speed up routine tasks, others have warned that the technology is unsettling long-established newsroom models and putting more jobs at risk.

Nine Entertainment is one of Australia’s largest media groups, and any workforce changes at the Herald and The Age are likely to attract close attention from staff, readers and competitors alike. For now, the company is presenting the move as part of a broader adjustment to a changing industry rather than an isolated restructuring.

This report is based on a monitored public feed. Source attribution is included below.

Source: The Guardian Technology - https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jul/21/smh-age-job-cuts-nine-sydney-morning-herald