US real estate IT business, OpenDoor, is shutting its India operations, affecting almost 250 employees, in a move highlighting the impact of artificial intelligence on worldwide operations as it shifts to smaller AI-native teams in the United States.
OpenDoor executive Kaz Nejatian stated in a memo to staff that the company had roughly 250 employees in India when it rolled out OpenDoor 2.0 a few months ago. “Some of these jobs have been brought back to the United States over the last few months,” he said.
WHY OPENDOOR IS MAKING THIS CHANGE
Explaining the reason behind the decision, Nejatian said OpenDoor had built a large team in India over the years to handle “manual workflows across fragmented systems”.
However, the company said its operations had changed after it unified these systems and created “small AI-native customer-facing teams throughout the US”.
“Our customers are in America, and the operational work we do for them is best done close to them,” Nejatian said.
He added that OpenDoor 2.0 would become “a much smaller company by headcount, but a much larger company by impact”.
“Our people, aided by the tools we have built, will own more, build more, and have broader scope than ever before,” he wrote.
The company said the restructuring would also simplify operations with fewer tools, fewer steps and fewer workarounds. It plans to build a single platform where employees can track a home’s journey through buying, renovation and selling, while removing manual workflows built on top of separate point solutions.
A TURNING POINT FOR INDIA’S OUTSOURCING MODEL?
The decision has triggered a debate about whether advances in artificial intelligence could alter the outsourcing model that has made India a global technology and operations hub.
Commenting on the move, a user wrote on X that OpenDoor’s decision to lay off its 200-plus India-based offshore team and replace them with smaller AI-native teams in the US could be a “watershed moment in AI Ops”.
“It shows how advancements in frontier models are paying off and how it affects the cost arbitrage that made India a popular offshoring destination,”Keshav Lohia wrote.
He added that “the entire outsourcing playbook has moved” and companies may shift from operations-heavy workforces to “nimble AI-native teams on-shore”.
While one company’s decision does not necessarily indicate a broader industry trend, the development has raised questions about how AI could change the future of offshore operations and routine back-office work.
SUPPORT FOR AFFECTED EMPLOYEES
OpenDoor said employees impacted by the decision would receive transition packages, including severance benefits, outplacement services and other resources.
A small subset of employees will remain with the company temporarily to complete the transition of key workstreams.
The company said its broader strategy remains unchanged. “Our priorities and direction have not changed, and OpenDoor is in a strong position and getting stronger,” Nejatian said.
For India’s outsourcing industry, the development is a reminder that AI is not only creating new opportunities but is also beginning to change how global companies organise work across countries.
