India, April 1 -- Zomato, the food delivery company which once made headlines for its growing business footprints, has laid off around 600 employees from its customer support team as it turns to artificial intelligence to handle increasing customer service demands.

The move follows the official rollout of 'Nugget, an in-house AI platform developed over the past three years, which is now managing more than 15 million customer interactions monthly across Zomato, Blinkit, and Hyperpure.

The layoffs affected staff members enrolled under Zomato's Associate Accelerator Program (ZAAP), a customer service training initiative launched last year. Employees based in Gurugram and Hyderabad alleged that they were quietly forced to resign, often rece...