Asia Tech Wire (Oct 11) -- TikTok parent company ByteDance has laid off more than 700 employees from its Malaysian branch as the company shifts its focus to the wider use of AI for content review, according to Reuters.

Citing sources, the report noted that most of the affected employees work in content review and were notified of their dismissal via email on Wednesday night.

The people also said ByteDance plans to make more layoffs next month to consolidate operations in some areas.

TikTok confirmed on Friday that the company was laying off staff globally, including in Malaysia.

"We are unable to give a precise figure at this time, owing to varying local employment regulation processes," a TikTok spokesperson said, adding that "we anticipate that several hundred people will be impacted globally."

The spokesperson said the layoffs were in line with TikTok's ongoing strategy of working to improve its content review capabilities.

The company plans to invest $2 billion in trust and security this year, and is continuing to strengthen content management by making reviewing more efficient, with about 80% of offending content now removed through automated technologies, the spokesperson said.