Meta, led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is continuous to shrink its workforce, like lots of its friends within the tech trade. After shedding a whole bunch of workers earlier this week, a leaked doc revealed the tech big’s weird plan for a number of of its remaining employees because it shifts in a brand new course.
Earlier this week, Meta laid off a number of hundred workers throughout a number of departments, together with world operations, gross sales, recruiting, Actuality Labs and even Fb, in accordance with a CNBC report.
Some workers affected by the change have been provided new roles on the firm, with some requiring relocation.
“Teams across Meta regularly restructure or implement changes to ensure they’re in the best position to achieve their goals,” mentioned a Meta spokesperson in a press release to CNBC. “Where possible, we are finding other opportunities for employees whose positions may be impacted.”
The job cuts comply with Meta’s January layoffs of 1,000 workers in its Actuality Labs division. The layoffs occurred after the division, which produces Meta’s digital actuality headsets, augmented actuality sensible glasses and metaverse imaginative and prescient, incurred $73 billion in losses since 2021 amid low client demand.
Final yr, Meta additionally reduce roughly 5% of its workforce, concentrating on low-performing workers. The layoffs come as the corporate has been ramping up its funding in synthetic intelligence.
Throughout an earnings name in January, Meta mentioned it plans to spend $135 billion on AI to help initiatives throughout its Superintelligence Labs and core enterprise.
A Reuters report later revealed that the corporate is allegedly contemplating shedding no less than 20% of its workforce because it appears to offset mounting AI prices.
Meta experiments with an uncommon workforce change after layoffs
As Meta continues to conduct layoffs amid its huge AI wager, it’s taking an uncommon strategy to reorganizing groups to arrange them for the corporate’s new actuality.
In a leaked memo, Meta said that it plans to rebrand a few of its workers as “AI builders,” organizing them into AI-native “pods,” in accordance with a current report from Enterprise Insider.
Meta is piloting this alteration inside its Actuality Labs division, impacting a workforce of 1,000 workers the place it plans to overtake titles, roles and workforce buildings.
The workforce inside the division focuses on constructing developer instruments, and every worker will maintain one in all these titles: AI builder, AI pod lead or AI org lead.
Associated: Meta makes drastic workforce determination after $73 billion in losses
Every pod has a small group of AI builders that work throughout completely different specialties. Insider stories that this might embody engineers tackling design work.
Pod leads oversee the day-to-day duties these teams deal with. Org leads oversee pod leads, and so they set up efficiency critiques and promotions, which might be supported by “AI systems.”
Meta started piloting this new construction inside its Actuality Labs division final month. The workforce’s dimension won’t be impacted by the change, in accordance with the memo.
“Our ultimate goal is to drive a step change in engineering productivity and product quality,” reads the memo. “To achieve this, we’re fundamentally rewiring how we operate, how we are structured, and how we support each other.”
Meta is making main workforce adjustments because it bets huge on AI.
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Meta not too long ago set eyebrow-raising AI objectives for workers
Meta’s plan to restructure groups additionally comes throughout a time when it has set objectives for the way a lot workers ought to use AI instruments to deal with coding and different duties.
In one other inner doc, Meta states that it expects 65% of its engineers to write down greater than 75% of their dedicated code utilizing AI by the primary half of this yr, in accordance with a separate Insider report.
Additionally, Meta’s Scalable Machine Studying group, which develops AI fashions and infrastructure, had a aim this February to attain 50% to 80% of code assisted by AI.
Within the fourth quarter of 2025, for central merchandise, Meta anticipated 55% of its software program engineers’ code adjustments to be AI-assisted and 80% of mid to senior-level engineers to undertake AI instruments.
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These objectives don’t come as a shock, as Meta began tying worker efficiency to their AI utilization final yr.
Bernstein analyst Mark Shmulik mentioned in a observe on March 16, which was unveiled by Insider, that Meta’s current job cuts and heavy AI deployment throughout its workforce may sign it’s successful the AI race within the tech trade.
“Meta has already demonstrated the compelling returns they’re seeing from deploying AI to core workloads,” wrote Shmulik. “But if the company can now re-design their operations from the ground up to be AI-forward, their potential cost and performance advantage could be insurmountable.”
Meta joins rising wave of workforce adjustments nationwide
Meta isn’t the one tech firm betting huge on AI and conducting layoffs. In January, Amazon laid off 16,000 workers because it leans extra in the direction of automation and AI.
Dell additionally decreased its headcount by about 10% in fiscal yr 2026 because it aggressively expands its AI server enterprise.
Up to now this yr, 71 tech corporations have carried out layoffs, impacting 40,482 workers, in accordance with current information from Layoffs.fyi.
A current survey from Resume.org discovered that over half of U.S. corporations plan to conduct layoffs this yr, with AI being cited as the primary trigger of those job cuts, even when it is not the rationale.
What’s driving layoffs within the U.S. in 2026:
- Roughly 55% of U.S. corporations plan layoffs in 2026, whereas 92% plan to rent.
- Almost half (48%) anticipate job cuts as early because the first quarter of this yr.
- AI leads the explanations for layoffs, cited by 44% of corporations, adopted by reorganization (42%) and price range pressures (39%).
- Additionally, 6 in 10 corporations acknowledge they body layoffs or hiring slowdowns round AI to make the choices extra acceptable, typically hiding monetary struggles.
- Solely 9% mentioned AI has totally changed sure roles, whereas 45% mentioned it has partially decreased hiring wants, and 45% report that AI has had little to no affect on staffing ranges.
Supply: Resume.org
Kara Dennison, head of profession advising at Resume.org, mentioned within the survey launch that corporations are utilizing AI as an evidence for job cuts as a result of it sounds “strategic, forward-looking, and inevitable.”
“Saying roles are being affected by AI signals innovation and modernization, while acknowledging financial strain can raise concerns among investors, employees, and customers,” mentioned Dennison.
Nonetheless, this narrative can have unintended penalties because it doesn’t at all times resonate with workers.
“Employees are far more perceptive than companies give them credit for,” she added. “When AI is used as a blanket explanation, but workloads do not meaningfully change, trust erodes quickly. People begin to question the transparency of leadership, its long-term stability, and whether future decisions will be communicated honestly. Over time, companies may find they have protected their narrative externally while damaging morale and retention internally.”
Associated: Dwelling Depot cuts again key worker profit amid buyer struggles
