Meta to cut 10% of staff, move 10% into AI roles

Meta will lay off about 10% of its employees and reassign roughly 10% into artificial intelligence roles, according to an internal memo circulating inside the company. The reassignments will move thousands of staff into units working on AI agents and related systems.

The memo instructs employees to work from home on the day the restructuring is announced. The main wave of changes is expected to be revealed on Wednesday, with further reductions planned later in the year.

About 7,000 employees are slated for internal transfer into AI-focused teams. Some staff will be assigned to groups named Applied AI Engineering and Agent Transformation Accelerator, which are responsible for building AI agents. The memo also describes a new Enterprise Solutions division that the company plans to detail with the announcement.

Company leaders told managers the reorganization aims to speed AI development and simplify reporting lines. Meta’s chief people officer wrote that many leaders “incorporated AI native design principles into their new org structures,” adding, “We’re now at the stage where many orgs can operate with a flatter structure with smaller teams of pods/cohorts that can move faster and with more ownership.” The document says some cuts will be concentrated among managerial roles as organizations are flattened.

The plan has prompted unrest inside the company. Employees circulated pictures of elephants to draw attention to the changes and distributed flyers opposing tools that collect employee computer activity to train AI. A petition circulated by staff demands a clear commitment that employee “computer use data” will not be used for AI training and calls for limits on collecting keystrokes, mouse movements and screen content. The petition states, “It should not be the norm that companies of any size are permitted to exploit their employees by nonconsensually extracting their data for the purposes of AI training.”

Meta has reduced headcount in prior years, including large rounds of layoffs in 2022 and 2023. The company cut about 3,600 roles last year and trimmed teams in Reality Labs and units tied to WhatsApp and Instagram in 2024.

The reorganization occurs as other AI companies expand offerings for business customers, launching enterprise consulting and software services aimed at commercial clients.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.