More detailed data by company. Ai is most likely the cause. Saying that that layoffs started before does not prove that it is not continuing because of Ai.
No one is going to say "we over hired because we had cheap capital and got careless and over-ambitious" or "we were overstaffed because we were inefficient".
I have yet to see a big corp using AI to reduce work and therefore not need the employees. It's an endless pit of work generation!
However it's now an excuse to cut head count because of executive poor decisions, and a poor economy due to having bad leadership.