Meta will reassign 7,000 employees to artificial intelligence-focused teams this week while cutting roughly 8,000 jobs globally as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg accelerates a restructuring intended to reshape the company around AI development.
Reuters reported that employees were informed in an internal memo on Monday that the restructuring would coincide with layoffs affecting about 10 per cent of Meta’s workforce on Wednesday, with further organisational changes planned later this year. The company employed 77,986 people at the end of March, according to regulatory filings, and has already closed 6,000 open roles as part of the overhaul.
Janelle Gale, Meta’s chief people officer, said in the memo that the company planned to “move 7,000 employees to new initiatives related to AI workflows” and eliminate management positions as teams adopt “AI native design principles”. Gale said the flatter structure would create “smaller teams of pods/cohorts that can move faster and with more ownership”.
The New York Times reported that the reassigned staff would move into four new organisations focused on developing AI tools and applications, including Applied AI Engineering and Agent Transformation Accelerator teams intended to build software agents capable of performing tasks currently handled by human employees. Gale wrote that the restructuring “will make us more productive and make the work more rewarding”.
Meta’s restructuring forms part of a broader push by Zuckerberg to prioritise AI investment after scaling back elements of the company’s metaverse strategy. The company told investors in January it expected to spend between $115 billion and $135 billion this year, largely on AI infrastructure, data centres and product development, according to the New York Times.
CNBC reported that employee morale has deteriorated as the restructuring gathers pace, with workers expressing concern over further cuts expected later this year and the company’s increasing use of employee-monitoring technology linked to AI training. More than 1,000 employees have signed a petition objecting to software that tracks mouse movements and keystrokes to help train AI systems, according to Reuters.
Umesh Ramakrishnan, chief strategy officer at executive search firm Kingsley Gate, told CNBC that investors increasingly expect companies to replace jobs with automation. “Now the world understands that jobs are being replaced by machines, and if you’re not doing that, shareholders are getting upset,” he said.
