Opendoor Shuts India Operations, Lays Off 250 Employees in AI Shift

Opendoor Closes Its India Centre

Opendoor, the San Francisco-based online real estate platform, is shutting down its entire India operation and letting go of nearly 250 employees. The roles, spread across technical and operational hubs in Chennai and Bengaluru, are being relocated to the United States as part of the company's AI-focused 'Opendoor 2.0' strategy.

CEO Kaz Nejatian announced the decision on Wednesday, 10 June, in a post on X and an internal note to staff. "Our customers are in America, and that's where our operational work belongs," he wrote. He added that the company needs all of this operational work done in person and close to its customers.

From Manual Workflows to AI-Native Teams

Opendoor had built a large India-based workforce over the years to handle manual workflows spread across multiple fragmented systems. But as the company unified those systems and hired smaller, AI-native customer-facing teams across the US, the offshore centre became redundant.

Nejatian said Opendoor had roughly 250 employees in India when it launched Opendoor 2.0 a few months ago. Several of those roles had already been shifted stateside in recent months, and this latest move finalises the process. He described Opendoor 2.0 as a much smaller company that aims to do more with the help of AI while eliminating unnecessary tools and manual processes.

Severance and Market Reaction

Opendoor said affected workers in India will receive severance benefits, outplacement services, and other transition support, with a handful of employees temporarily staying on to ensure a smooth handover. Nejatian acknowledged that the impacted employees had made meaningful contributions to the company.

Investors appeared to welcome the restructuring. Opendoor's stock rose on the announcement, with market participants interpreting the closure as validation of the company's AI-led operational overhaul.

Broader Implications for Offshore Outsourcing

The move adds to a growing list of US technology firms rethinking their India operations as AI tools increasingly replace tasks once handled by large offshore teams. For years, India's cost advantage made it a hub for back-office work, but the rapid advance of AI-driven automation is reshaping that calculus and raising questions about the long-term viability of traditional outsourcing models.