AI did the job: Opendoor shuts India operations, lays off 250 employees

US-based proptech firm Opendoor is closing its India office and laying off nearly 250 employees, citing a shift to AI-driven workflows and the need to relocate customer-facing roles closer to its core American market. The decision, communicated through a memo by CEO Kaz Nejatian, marks the culmination of a broader restructuring initiative the company calls "Opendoor 2.0."

Founded in 2014, Opendoor built its business around an "iBuying" model, using technology and data analytics to make instant cash offers on homes, purchase them directly from sellers, and resell them on the open market. The company also provides mortgage and home-selling services through its digital platform and operates across multiple US housing markets.

It went public in 2020 via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) and counts Sam Altman, Khosla Ventures, General Atlantic, Andreessen Horowitz, and SoftBank Vision Fund among its prominent backers.

According to Nejatian's memo, the India-based workforce was historically tasked with managing manual processes spread across fragmented internal systems. As those systems have since been integrated and increasingly automated through AI, the company determined that the remaining operational work no longer requires a large offshore team.

"When we launched Opendoor 2.0 a few months ago, Opendoor had nearly 250 employees in India. Over the last few months, some of these jobs have been relocated back to the United States," Nejatian wrote, adding that the company is now "finalising bringing these roles closer to our customers in America."

The Opendoor 2.0 strategy prioritises reducing the number of tools and internal workflows, building a unified platform for home transactions, and eliminating manual processes wherever possible. As AI takes over tasks previously handled by human teams, the company says it expects to emerge leaner but more productive.

For the nearly 250 employees affected by the wind-down, Opendoor has said it will provide severance pay, outplacement services, and transition support. A small contingent will be retained temporarily to assist with migrating key workstreams before the India operations are fully closed.

The company was careful to frame the decision as a structural one rather than a performance issue. "This is not a reflection of the quality of their work. Our colleagues in India are great people, and we recommend them to anyone hiring," the memo stated, according to a Moneycontrol report.

The closure is the latest in a series of workforce reductions tied to AI-led automation hitting the tech sector. For Opendoor, it signals a fundamental shift in how the company intends to operate going forward; with focus on smaller, US-based teams working alongside AI systems rather than large distributed workforces managing manual, process-heavy tasks from overseas.