Freepik became Magnific to embrace AI. Now it proposes an ERE for almost a third of its employees in Spain

Generative artificial intelligence is not only changing the tools we use to create images, videos or designs. It is also forcing many companies to ask themselves what they want to be in a market that moves at an unusual speed. freepik It is one of those cases that we have seen up close: it was born associated with graphic resources and for years it was a reference for those looking for images, vectors or templates. Your conversion into Magnific He wanted to tell precisely another story, that of a company that embraced AI to leave its previous stage behind.

We are faced with news that fell this Wednesday afternoon: Magnific has raised a ERE in Spain. According to the information collected by Xataka, the procedure is still in the negotiation phase and involves around 30% of the 350 employees that the company has in the country. The nuance is important because Magnific is today a company with an international presence and some 450 employees globally: the ERE, according to what we know so far, affects its Spanish organization, not the entire global workforce.

An ERE in full transformation towards AI

It is worth stopping for a moment on the term. An employment regulation file is not equivalent, in itself, to dismissals already carried out, but rather to the legal procedure provided in Spain to propose a collective dismissal for economic, technical, organizational or productive reasons. The Workers’ Statute establishes that a period of consultations must be opened with the legal representation of the workers, a phase designed to negotiate the scope of the processits conditions and possible measures to reduce or mitigate its impact. In other words: what is now open is a procedure with prior negotiation before an eventual final decision.

After hearing the news, we have contacted Magnific to find out its position. The company confirms the procedure and refers to the following statement: “We are in an internal process that affects part of the organization in Spain and is subject to a period of negotiation with the workers’ representation. As long as this process remains open, we are not going to make public evaluations out of respect for the people involved and the process itself.”

To understand the context it is advisable to return to the starting point. Freepik became known as a platform for graphic assets: images, vectors, icons, templates and other materials that designers, content creators and marketing teams could incorporate into their projects. Magnific represents another ambition. The company now presents itself as a creative platform based on generative AIwith tools to generate, edit and transform visual content, and integrating models and capabilities that no longer fully fit with that initial idea of ​​a large repository of digital assets.

Images | Magnificent

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