AOL is expected to announce Thursday that it will lay off 500 people, or 5 percent of its staff, as it shifts focus.
"The layoffs are related to a 2017 strategy where we will add to our business," AOL CEO Tim Armstrong said in an interview with Recode. "These are super targeted by area and we will be re-growing especially in video and mobile."
Armstrong said most of the cuts would come from its corporate units and that resources would be moved to mobile, video and data divisions.
AOL was one of the marquee companies of the dot-com era and is the owner of media properties such as Huffington Post and TechCrunch, in addition to a media advertising business. It was acquired by Verizon in mid-2015 for $4.4 billion, and it is expected to be merged with Yahoo's online assets in a $4.6 billion deal that Verizon announced in July of this year.
AOL did not immediately respond to a request for comment.