Meta slashes 8,000 jobs as AI spending forces tech layoffs across industry giants

Meta and Microsoft have joined the tech layoff tsunami - but is AI really to blame?

Meta and Microsoft are the latest software companies to announce big cuts to their global workforce. Both companies are also making big investments in artificial intelligence (AI). The link seems obvious. Meta's chief people officer, Janelle Gale, said the job cuts - about 10% of staff or almost 8,000 workers - serve to "offset the other investments we're making". Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg has previously spoken about a "major AI acceleration" with spending in excess of US$115bn planned this year. Microsoft is also betting big on AI. The company also just announced early retirement packages for about 7% of its US workforce. The two tech giants join Atlassian, Block, WiseTech Global and Oracle, who have all made similar announcements this year, each evoking AI without outright blaming it. What is happening here? How we understand these layoffs depends on what we think AI is, and what implications it will have. Broadly speaking, there are three ways of looking at it: that AI is superintelligence, that it's mostly hype, and that it's a useful tool. The end of white-collar work? In the first view, AI is emerging superintelligence. It is a new kind of mind, that learns, reasons, and will soon outperform humans at most cognitive tasks (hint: it's not!). The job losses are not just a corporate restructuring. They are an early tremor of something seismic. In February 2026, AI entrepreneur Matt Shumer put this view vividly - comparing the current moment to the strange, quiet weeks before COVID-19 broke into global consciousness. Most people, he argued, haven't yet realised we are facing an "intelligence explosion". The essay drew significant criticism. Commentators noted it contained little hard data and read at times like a pitch for Shumer's company's own AI products. But it captured a genuine anxiety. Something real is happening in software engineering, at least, where tasks are well-defined and success is easy to verify. But the leap to "all white-collar work will be automated" is a big one. The view that AI is a kind of universal mind that learns and improves itself is far-fetched. And most professional work is far messier than coding: ambiguous briefs, competing stakeholder interests, outputs that are hard to verify, and shifting success criteria. Coding may be a canary in the coal mine, but coal mines and boardrooms are very different places. Are tech companies winding back hiring sprees? The second view sees the conversation around AI as mostly hype. AI is being invoked as cover. Companies that hired aggressively during the pandemic boom, and now face financial pressure, are blaming AI as the more palatable explanation. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called this dynamic "AI washing": companies blaming AI for layoffs they would have made regardless. For example, Meta announced in March it would shut down its Metaverse platform Horizon World by June. Reality Labs, the division developing the technology, employed 15,000 people as of January 2026. We don't know in detail the make-up of the present job cuts, so Meta may just be repackaging earlier failiures as AI-driven productivity gains. Another cynical reading suggests that laying off workers in the name of AI is a way to drive up stock prices. When Block invoked AI and cut nearly 4,000 roles, its stock jumped the following day. Announce AI-driven layoffs and you may find investors reward you for being future-focused. It is a historically familiar trick: technology has repeatedly served as convenient cover for financial restructuring. Are layoffs a way to make staff use AI? The third view is more nuanced. It sees AI as a powerful tool, but one that companies will need to transform themselves to take advantage of. This has implications for what jobs are needed and in what quantities. We think this view has the most merit. On this reading, the tech leaders believe AI will change how software gets built. But they don't know exactly how. So they do what tech companies often do when faced with uncertainty: they create pressure. They cut headcount staff, expect those remaining to produce just as much as before, and force teams to find ways to meet those expectations using AI. It's not a bet that AI will do everything, but that the pressure will force humans to work out how to use AI to increase productivity. This also lines up with industry experience. For example, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai claims a 10% increase in engineering speed from AI adoption across the company. This could tally with cuts of around 7-10% of total workforce for most of the mentioned companies. What this means for knowledge workers These three views are often presented as mutually exclusive. In practice, all three expectations exist simultaneously. The honest answer to "what is really happening here" is probably "a bit of everything". What is true is that software development tends to be an early indicator of broader shifts in knowledge work. Productivity benefits from AI are real for those who adopt it. Yet adoption is unevenly distributed, and lags in less technical industries. In this context, the ability to understand AI and make good decisions about how and where to use it is becoming a baseline professional skill. The workers most at risk are not necessarily those whose tasks can be replicated by AI. They are those who wait for pressure to arrive from outside rather than getting ahead of it now. We will have answers to the question of whether AI is mostly hype or a useful tool in the next few years. If Meta, Microsoft, and their peers rehire staff with different skills, redesign workflows, and emerge genuinely more capable, the case for useful AI looks good. If they simply pocket the payroll savings, the cynics were right. If you want to know where tech companies are going, don't look at what they cut - watch what they hire.

Meta, Microsoft Look to Trim Workforces Amid Heavy AI Spending

Meta Platforms Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have both taken drastic actions to trim their workforces in an effort to streamline their operations and offset heavy spending on artificial intelligence. Meta told personnel in an internal memo on Thursday that it planned to cut 10% of workers, or roughly 8,000 employees, starting on May 20. The social-media company also said it wouldn't fill 6,000 open roles. Earlier in the day, Microsoft issued its own memo offering voluntary buyouts to thousands of its US employees. About 7% of the US workforce will be eligible for the buyouts, according to a person familiar with the planning. The company has never previously done buyouts of this scale, said the person, who requested anonymity to discuss an internal matter. Microsoft had 125,000 employees in the US as of June 2025. That would make about 8,750 workers eligible for the program. Big tech companies have been looking for ways to trim their expenses as they pour billions into data centers and other infrastructure to meet demand for artificial intelligence services. Record Spending Microsoft is racing to construct data centers around the world and this month announced new AI investments in Japan and Australia. Meta, meanwhile, has projected record capital expenditures this year and has announced several multibillion-dollar deals with AI partners over the past few months. Both companies have instituted several rounds of layoffs in recent years. Meta alluded to its AI spending in the memo, which was written by Janelle Gale, chief people officer. "We're doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we're making," she wrote in the note, which was reviewed by Bloomberg. Meta employees have spent much of the year fretting about job cuts, which already hit the Reality Labs division and other teams. Gale said that the company was announcing the layoffs early since details of the plan had already leaked. Reuters first reported on Meta's planned workforce reductions earlier this month. "I know this is unwelcome news and confirming this puts everyone in an uneasy state, but we feel this is the best path forward, given the circumstances," Gale wrote. Microsoft's buyout program is being offered to workers whose years of service plus their age totals 70 or more, excluding some senior roles or those on sales incentive plans, according to the memo from Chief People Officer Amy Coleman. "I've never seen the company move with this level of urgency and pace, and I see the intensity and agility you bring every day," Coleman wrote in the memo, which was reviewed by Bloomberg. "To sustain this pace, we have to stay focused on doing great work, trusting and empowering our managers and simplifying to support everyone." Both companies are scheduled to report quarterly earnings on April 29.

Meta to cut 10% of jobs to 'offset' Mark Zuckerberg's AI spending

Meta will cut 10 per cent of its staff next month, or about 8,000 jobs, as the social media platform reduces its workforce to offset chief executive Mark Zuckerberg's AI spending spree. The $1.7tn social media group on Thursday told staff in a memo that it was laying off the staff in order to "run the company more efficiently and . . . offset the other investments we're making". Meta also said that it was no longer filling 6,000 positions that it had initially planned to hire for, according to several people familiar with the matter. The cuts come as Zuckerberg spends billions of dollars on AI infrastructure, including a fleet of costly data centres, as well as on poaching elite talent in order to catch up with rivals such as Google and OpenAI in the race to build cutting-edge models. Meta said in January that its capital expenditure could nearly double to $135bn this year. This is a developing story

Meta will cut 10% of workforce as it pushes more into AI

Meta will lay off 10% of its workforce, equating to about 8,000 employees, as it continues investing heavily into artificial intelligence, the company confirmed on Thursday. The social media giant will initiate the job cuts on May 20, and is scrapping plans to hire people for 6,000 open roles, according to a Thursday memo to employees that Bloomberg News first reported on. Meta's latest planned round of layoffs follow several smaller job reductions that the company has characterized as necessary to improve efficiency while focusing its efforts on generative AI where it faces tough competition from rivals like OpenAI, Google and Anthropic. The tech giant fired roughly 10% of staff who focus on metaverse-related virtual reality projects stemming from its Reality Labs unit, CNBC reported in January. Roughly 1,000 people in the company's Reality Labs unit were let go at that time, and affected staff working on the company's Quest-branded VR headsets, VR content studios and the Horizon Worlds virtual social network. Another round of layoffs commenced in March and affected hundreds of employees working in a variety of units, including Facebook, Reality Labs, global operations and sales. Meta also said that month that it would shift away from third-party vendors and contractors, which have historically handled content moderation tasks, in favor of relying on various AI technologies. Earlier this week, Meta revealed to staff that a new employee tracking tool called the Model Capability Initiative (MCI), intended to capture data from staff members using their work computers. The data, which includes employee keystrokes and mouse clicks, is needed to train AI agents, a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. "If we're building agents to help people complete everyday tasks using computers, our models need real examples of how people actually use them -- things like mouse movements, clicking buttons, and navigating dropdown menus," the spokesperson said. "To help, we're launching an internal tool that will capture these kinds of inputs on certain applications to help us train our models. There are safeguards in place to protect sensitive content, and the data is not used for any other purpose." Meta shares are down about 2.4% in midday trading to $658.40.

Meta to cut 8,000 jobs to bankroll its AI ambitions

Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust. What just happened? Meta plans to cut about 10% of its workforce, or roughly 8,000 employees, and will no longer fill 6,000 open roles, according to an internal memo sent Thursday. The layoffs are set to take effect May 20 as the company redirects resources toward AI, including large language models and supporting infrastructure. The move reflects a broader pattern across major technology companies, where AI spending is rising even as headcount declines. Meta has projected record capital expenditures this year and announced several multibillion-dollar AI partnerships in recent months. Internally, employees have been encouraged to use AI agents in day-to-day work, including software engineering and content generation, as the company looks to increase output per worker. In the memo, Chief People Officer Janelle Gale framed the layoffs as part of a broader reallocation of resources toward those initiatives. "We're doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we're making," she wrote. Meta's AI push is driving higher costs across compute and hiring, two areas that have become more expensive across the industry. Training and deploying large-scale models requires major investment in data centers, GPUs, and energy infrastructure, while competition for experienced AI researchers and engineers remains intense. Those pressures are pushing companies to cut expenses elsewhere, often through hiring freezes or layoffs. The company had nearly 79,000 employees at the beginning of the year. Earlier rounds of cuts affected divisions including Reality Labs, as Meta shifted focus away from parts of its metaverse strategy and toward AI-driven products. The latest cuts extend that restructuring across more of the business. Gale acknowledged the uncertainty created internally by the announcement, noting that details were shared earlier than planned after reports of the cuts surfaced publicly. "I know this is unwelcome news and confirming this puts everyone in an uneasy state, but we feel this is the best path forward, given the circumstances," she wrote. The memo also outlined severance and transition support, including 16 weeks of base pay for US employees, additional compensation based on tenure, extended healthcare coverage, and career placement services. Notifications will be sent by email on May 20 to affected employees. Other large tech companies are making similar moves. Just this week, Microsoft started offering voluntary retirement packages for the first time to thousands of US workers, reflecting similar cost adjustments tied to rising AI spending. Meta is positioning these changes as a way to balance costs with its AI investments. The company is scheduled to report first-quarter earnings next week, which may offer further insight into how those tradeoffs are reshaping its financial outlook and product roadmap.

Meta says it will cut 8,000 jobs as AI spending grows

Meta will cut thousands of jobs next month as it spends more than ever on artificial intelligence (AI) projects. The company told employees in a memo on Thursday that it plans to cut 10% of its workforce - roughly 8,000 staff. It said it will also not fill thousands more open jobs it had been hiring for. A key reason for the layoffs is Meta's increased spending in other areas of the company, including AI, for which it will this year spend $135bn (£100bn). This is roughly equal to the amount it has spent on AI in the previous three years combined, according to a person who viewed the memo. A spokesman for Meta confirmed the planned jobs cuts but declined to comment further. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's co-founder and chief executive, made public comments in January that essentially telegraphed the company would be cutting jobs again this year. The Meta boss said he had seen how much more productive workers who relied heavily on AI tools had become, noting a single person could now complete projects that would have previously required a large team. "I think that 2026 is going to be the year that AI starts to dramatically change the way that we work," Zuckerberg said. Last week Reuters news agency reported that Meta was planning to cut potentially more than 10,000 employees this year. The memo to employees on Thursday was first reported by Bloomberg. While Meta has already cut around 2,000 workers in two smaller rounds of layoffs already this year, employees had been braced for weeks for a much deeper cut, as the BBC previously reported. Meta's spending and internal focus had shifted heavily in recent months toward catching up on the development of AI models and tools. The company just this week informed employees that it would begin tracking and logging their interactions with work computers in order to help train and improve its AI models, a move one employee called "dystopian" given the looming layoffs. "This company has become obsessed with AI," they told the BBC. Since 2022, Meta has enacted several rounds of job cuts, shedding tens of thousands of workers. But it had started hiring again, and last year its overall number of employees looked to be at around the same level it had been at before its initial layoff. The upcoming jobs cuts will be Meta's largest layoff since 2023.

Meta Is Racing to Move Faster and Break More Things

Meta will cut 10% of its workforce to improve efficiency and offset its enormous AI spending, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The news comes on the same day that Microsoft announced it would be offering buyouts to 7% of its workforce, the first time in the company's 51-year history. The layoffs at Meta will impact about 8,000 employees, according to a memo sent to employees, and roughly 6,000 vacant positions won't be filled, reports Bloomberg. Employees who are on the chopping block will be notified on May 20, according to the Wall Street Journal. Meta's Chief People Officer Janelle Gale wrote in the memo that, “This is not an easy tradeoff and it will mean letting go of people who have made meaningful contributions to Meta during their time here," according to the Journal. Meta declined to comment in an email to Gizmodo, but confirmed the number of people being laid off was accurate. Microsoft sent its own memo to employees on Thursday announcing a one-time retirement program for employees whose age and years at the company add up to at least 70. Employees will get details about that program on May 7, according to CNBC. The layoffs and buyouts are part of a broader push in the tech world to reduce headcount in the name of AI. Part of that equation is the perception that companies need fewer workers because AI is improving efficiency. But another reason involves the incredible amount of spending these companies are doing to build out AI infrastructure. Those billions are being offset by reductions in funds that would've previously been given to employees for their labor. Large companies like Amazon are making a similar calculation while also going the extra mile to suppress wages among its white-collar workforce. Reuters reports that Amazon is stripping titles from many of its workers in the Ring and Blink home security units. As of next month, many employees will simply be called “builders,†with bosses known as “builder leads." This change is being positioned as a way to flatten hierarchies and "reduce corporate bureaucracy." But the reality of what's driving this is pretty obvious to anyone who's paying attention. Stripping job titles, including something like "senior project manager," allows companies to pay people less. Blue-collar workers saw a massive upheaval in their work and wages during the second half of the 20th century thanks to automation. But white-collar work didn't always see the same kind of disruptions from tech in the early 21st century. You had jobs that largely disappeared thanks to the internet, like a travel agent. But white-collar workers were often insulated from disruptions until generative AI came along. But now companies believe they can offer lower salaries to office workers because their competition isn't just other humans. It's the chatbot that can work faster, even if the work arguably isn't as good. Today, companies like Meta and Amazon can spend billions of dollars building out AI data centers and spending big on the tools that will replace their workforce. And it's giving companies the leverage they may have previously lacked during times of economic prosperity. Historically, low employment meant that employers had to pay higher salaries to attract talent in a smaller pool of workers. The rising wages allowed those workers to buy more things, feeding economic growth in the U.S. And the broader economy did better when middle-class white-collar workers were doing better. But that seems to have decoupled in a very strange way during recent years. Wage growth has been slowing since 2022, and inflation is ticking up, with much more drastic inflation expected in the second half of 2026 if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. But the ownership class and stock market seem to be doing just fine... at least for now. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 closed at record highs on Wednesday. And it doesn't seem to matter that we're reading about new layoffs at major employers of white-collar workers every week. What's the solution? To guys like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk, AI will fix everything. In fact, Musk insists that everyone will be rich in the future, thanks to the AI-powered robots he's going to deliver. "Actually, AI/Robotics will mean everyone can have a penthouse if they want," Musk tweeted on April 18. "The output of goods & services will be several orders of magnitude higher than today’s economy." The billionaire oligarch is selling the idea of a leisure society where everyone is not only financially secure but also wealthy. It was a common idea in the 20th century, even among level-headed experts. But it didn't pan out, because companies don't respond to advances in automation by making their employees wealthy and telling them they only have to work three hours a day. They respond by laying off workers and keeping the money for themselves. That's how capitalism works, and the wealthiest people in the worldâ€"Zuck, Bezos, Muskâ€"obviously understand this. If they thought otherwise, they'd be handing their employees enormous checks. Instead, they're handing them pink slips.

Meta to cut 8,000 jobs on 20 May with more layoffs planned for second half of 2026

In short: Meta will begin companywide layoffs on 20 May, cutting approximately 8,000 employees (10% of its 78,865-person workforce), with additional cuts planned for the second half of 2026. The restructuring, which follows earlier rounds that brought Zuckerberg's total cuts since 2022 to roughly 25,000, is driven by a reallocation toward AI infrastructure costing $115-135 billion in 2026, with teams reorganised into AI-focused "pods" under new Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang's Superintelligence Labs. Meta will begin companywide layoffs on 20 May, cutting approximately 8,000 employees, or 10% of its global workforce, according to three people familiar with the plans who spoke to Reuters. Additional cuts are planned for the second half of 2026, though their timing and scope have not been finalised. The May round is the first phase of a restructuring that earlier reports suggested could eventually reach 20% of the company, though a Meta spokesperson called that figure "speculative reporting about theoretical approaches." The layoffs will hit teams across Reality Labs, the Facebook social division, recruiting, sales, and global operations. California WARN Act filings confirm 124 positions at Meta's Burlingame office effective 22 May and 74 at its Sunnyvale facility effective 29 May. But the bulk of the cuts will be spread across the company's 78,865-person workforce, which grew 6% last year even as Mark Zuckerberg was publicly declaring that AI would allow Meta to do more with fewer people. The May round is not the beginning of Meta's 2026 workforce reduction. It is the escalation. In January, the company cut roughly 1,000 to 1,500 Reality Labs employees, approximately 10% of that division's staff, and shut down several VR game studios. Reality Labs' budget was slashed by 30%. In March, Meta cut another 700 employees across at least five divisions. The May layoffs represent a shift from targeted reductions to a companywide restructuring that touches every major business unit. Since 2022, Zuckerberg has eliminated roughly 25,000 positions. The first round, 11,000 in November 2022, was framed as correcting pandemic-era over-hiring. The second, 10,000 in early 2023, accompanied what Zuckerberg called the "Year of Efficiency." In January 2025, another 3,600 were cut in what the company described as performance-based terminations, though some affected employees had received ratings of "at or above expectations." The May 2026 round is structurally different: it is not about removing underperformers but about reorganising the company around AI. The restructuring is being led by two executives who represent Meta's new priorities. Alexandr Wang, the 28-year-old CEO of Scale AI whom Meta hired in June 2025 as Chief AI Officer, runs Meta Superintelligence Labs, the division that debuted its first major model, Muse Spark, earlier this month. Meta acquired a 49% stake in Scale AI for $14.3 billion to secure Wang's involvement. Maher Saba, who now heads the new Applied AI Engineering division reporting to CTO Andrew Bosworth, authored an internal memo on 14 April outlining the overhaul. The new division consists of two teams: one focused on interfaces and tooling, and another on task execution, data generation, and evaluations. Traditional roles are being replaced with new titles: "AI builder," "AI pod lead," and "AI org lead." Roughly 1,000 employees have already been affected by the rebranding, and engineers from across the company are being transferred into the Applied AI organisation. The internal memo stated that the goal was to "drive a step change in engineering productivity and product quality" and that Meta was "fundamentally rewiring how we operate." The departure that shaped this moment happened earlier. Yann LeCun, Meta's former Chief AI Scientist, left the company in late 2025 after 12 years, citing disagreements over AI research direction and tensions with Zuckerberg. He called Wang "young and inexperienced," then went on to found AMI Labs and raise €1.03 billion in what became Europe's largest-ever seed round, backed by Nvidia, Bezos Expeditions, and Temasek. Meta subsequently cut 600 FAIR researchers and restructured its AI division around Wang's Superintelligence Labs. Meta's 2025 results make the layoffs harder to frame as a response to financial pressure. Revenue reached $201 billion, up 22% year over year. Fourth quarter net income was $22.8 billion, beating analyst expectations. Free cash flow for the year was $43.6 billion. The stock rose nearly 10% after the Q4 earnings report. Bank of America has a price target of $885 and projected $7 to $8 billion in annualised savings from the restructuring. The pressure is coming from the other side of the balance sheet. Meta's capital expenditure guidance for 2026 is $115 to $135 billion, nearly double the $72.2 billion it spent in 2025. The money is going to data centres, GPUs, and infrastructure for Llama models and recommendation systems, including a $27 billion joint venture with Nebius for a gigawatt-scale AI data centre campus in Louisiana. CFO Susan Li warned of "significant acceleration in infrastructure expense growth" as depreciation and operating costs from expanded data centres hit the income statement. The layoffs are not about survival. They are about funding the most expensive corporate bet in technology history while maintaining the operating margins that Wall Street expects. Meta has redesigned its performance review system to support the restructuring. Employees are now categorised into four tiers: the top 20%, the middle 70%, a lower 7%, and the bottom 3%. Top performers with "truly exceptional impact" can receive up to 300% of their base bonus. Managers have been asked to mark 15 to 20% of employees as "below expectations," a larger proportion than previous targets. The system has shifted to reward output over effort, and employees who cannot demonstrate clear business impact are vulnerable regardless of their tenure or prior ratings. The contrast with executive compensation has not gone unnoticed internally. Meta granted its senior executives stock options worth up to $921 million each, tied to a $9 trillion market capitalisation target by March 2031, in the same period it was laying off hundreds. On Blind, the anonymous professional network, employees have described the workplace as "toxic" and reported a "crisis of trust" around whether cuts are merit-based, particularly after high-performing employees were caught in previous rounds. Meta is not an outlier. The tech industry has shed more than 95,000 jobs across 247 layoff events in 2026, an average of 882 per day. Amazon cut 16,000 in January. Oracle eliminated up to 30,000, roughly 18% of its workforce, to fund $156 billion in AI infrastructure. Fifty-five per cent of US hiring managers surveyed expect layoffs this year, with 44% citing AI as a primary driver. The pattern is consistent: companies are reporting record revenues and simultaneously cutting headcount, redirecting the savings into AI infrastructure that they believe will generate more value than the employees it replaces. Whether that belief is correct will determine whether the current restructuring wave looks prescient or destructive in retrospect. Meta's Q1 2026 earnings, scheduled for 29 April, will provide the first financial snapshot of a company that is simultaneously spending more than almost any corporation in history and reducing its workforce at a pace not seen since the pandemic correction. Zuckerberg has said 2026 would be a year where "the AI wave accelerates even further on several fronts." For roughly 8,000 people who will lose their jobs on 20 May, the acceleration is already here.

'We're doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently': Meta announces layoffs of 10% of workforce amid massive AI push

Meta's reported plan to cut around 10% of its workforce is being framed as another major round of tech layoffs. But the bigger story here is about what comes next. According to a new Bloomberg report, Meta Platforms is preparing to eliminate roughly 8,000 jobs while continuing to spend aggressively on AI, data centers and the massive computing power needed to compete in the next phase of the AI race. That suggests these cuts may be more about reducing payroll today to help build a leaner, faster and more automated company tomorrow. In other words, this may be a productivity bet. Why layoffs and AI spending can happen at the same time It seems counterproductive to see layoffs at a profitable company. Why cut jobs when business is strong? But because labor is often one of the largest controllable expenses, reducing headcount can free billions of dollars over time; money that can then be redirected into higher-priority areas like chips, servers, cloud infrastructure and elite AI talent. The new playbook across tech seems to be reduce slower-growth costs, then double down on AI. For Meta Platforms, that could look like growing the company with smaller teams that are expected to deliver more while using increasingly capable AI tools. Even Mark Zuckerberg himself is reportedly building an AI version of himself. What a '4x productivity bet' could actually mean Creating more productive teams ("four times more productive," according to the report), doesn't happen overnight, but AI certainly helps speed up the process with tools that can draft code faster, analyze data in minutes instead of days, create marketing assets instantly, automate customer support workflows, summarize meetings, reports and research and overall handle repetitive internal tasks without adding headcount. Multiply those gains across thousands of employees, and executives may see a path to dramatically higher output with fewer people. That's likely the real promise being chased here; AI is allowing companies to scale without hiring at previous levels. Why this matters beyond Meta When a company as influential as Meta Platforms makes a move like this, rivals pay attention. If Meta can cut costs, accelerate product development and maintain growth while operating with fewer employees, don't be surpised if other companies follow. As scary as it is, this massive round of layoffs could reshape hiring across the broader white-collar economy. The most exposed areas may be roles centered around repeatable digital work, including administrative operations, entry-level analysis, basic content production, scheduling and coordination or anything involving internal workflows. And while the numbers are frightening, this doesn't mean those jobs disappear overnight. It means expectations change as companies ask workers to manage AI systems rather than manually complete every task themselves. To be clear, this isn't a signal to panic, but it is a notice that it's time to adapt. As Reese Witherspoon suggested earlier in the week, the safest career move in the AI era may be becoming the person who knows how to use the tools, guide the tools and improve outcomes with the tools. The takeaway The winners likely won't be people who compete against AI on volume. They could be people who use AI to multiply their value. Meta Platforms's reported layoffs is a cost-cutting solution and a glimpse into how major companies plan to operate by 2027. Fewer people, more automation and much higher expectations for productivity suggest an emerging workplace model where efficiency matters more than headcount, and AI fluency becomes one of the most valuable skills an employee can have. Follow Tom's Guide on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds.

Meta to Axe 8,000 Workers Amid AI Drive

Meta circulated a memo to staff yesterday (Thursday) informing them that the company plans to lay off 10 percent of its workforce in May. That's roughly 8,000 jobs. On top of that, Meta says it will not fill the thousands of jobs it was advertising for. It is no secret that Meta has been pushing hard into artificial intelligence (AI), and the eye-watering sums involved in AI architecture are a key reason for the layoffs. Meta is expected to spend $135 billion this year, which is as much as the previous three years combined. The splurge spooked jittery investors last year and sent the stock price plummeting. While the mass redundancies are brutal, they have been expected. The BBC notes that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said earlier this year that he had noticed workers are way more productive when they use AI tools. "I think that 2026 is going to be the year that AI starts to dramatically change the way that we work," Zuckerberg said. Meta, a company that is no stranger to mass layoffs, has already cut 2,000 jobs this year. But these cuts specifically relate to infrastructure costs of running AI models, and, as The Associated Press notes, the cost of firing AI experts the company hired on big salaries. "We're doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we're making," Meta's chief people officer, Janelle Gale, wrote in the memo to staff. Meta is far from the only tech giant laying off jobs amid the AI revolution: Amazon has said it will cull 16,000 workers because of its AI investments; Microsoft also announced this week that it is offering voluntary buyouts to roughly 8,750 workers; and Snapchat's parent company, Snap Inc., is cutting 16 percent of its workforce -- about 1,000 jobs. As well as the cuts, Meta also announced this week that it will track and log employees' interactions with work computers so that data can train its AI models. Workers have described Meta's actions as "dystopian."

Microsoft and Meta announce sweeping layoffs as they spend big on AI

Meta said it would cut 10% of it employees while Microsoft will offer voluntary retirement to about 7% of workers Meta and Microsoft are trimming their workforces by thousands as they make heavy investments in AI and executives claim that the technology is meeting their companies' productivity needs. Meta told staff on Thursday that on 20 May it would cut some 10% of its personnel just under 8,000 employees- to boost efficiency, part of a layoff plan made months ago. The company is also closing about 6,000 open roles. The same day, Microsoft announced to employees, for the first time, that it would offer voluntary retirement to about 7% of its American workforce of roughly 125,000. In an internal memo to Meta's staff, Janelle Gale, the chief people officer, didn't mention AI explicitly but said the cuts would allow the company to "offset the other investments we're making". In Meta's fourth-quarter 2025 earnings presentation, the CEO, Mark Zuckerberg spoke about a "major AI acceleration" that included plans to spend between $115bn and $135bn on AI - nearly twice the company's capital expenditure the previous year. "This is not an easy tradeoff," Gale wrote. She emphasized that laid off employees would receive a generous severance package. Zuckerberg, in contrast to Gale, has said outright that AI is making some hiring unnecessary. "We're starting to see projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person," he said in the January earnings call. Meta confirmed news reports of the layoffs and internal memo, but declined to comment further. Microsoft wrote to its employees on Thursday that it would be offering voluntary buyouts to longtime employees, in particular those for whom the sum of their ages and years at the company amount to 70 or greater, according to the FT. More than 8,000 employees would qualify, according to the FT. Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In July 2025, Microsoft forecast that it would spend some $100bn on AI infrastructure in the coming fiscal year. Analysts now estimate that figure to be $110bn-$120bn. Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft's AI chief, said in February that he believes that AI will be able to replace most white collar work within the next 12 to 18 months. Satya Nadella, the Microsoft CEO, has trumpeted Microsoft's internal AI adoption, which he says has led to major productivity gains. In April 2025, he claimed that AI handled as much as 30% of the company's coding work. "We are only at the beginning phases of AI diffusion, and already Microsoft has built an AI business that is larger than some of our biggest franchises," he said in a January press release. Zuckerberg was sitting onstage with Nadella as the Microsoft CEO made the remark. When Nadella asked Zuckerberg how much of the social media company's coding was done by AI, Zuckerberg said: "Our bet is sort of that in the next year probably ... maybe half the development is going to be done by AI, as opposed to people, and then that will just kind of increase from there." The redundancy announcements from the two tech giants come amid tech workers' growing concerns that their bosses will try to replace them with AI. Those fears aren't unfounded. Employees themselves are becoming fodder to train AI models. Reuters recently uncovered an internal memo at Meta showing that the company is installing new software on American employees' computers to record their mouse movements, clicks and keystrokes to feed into AI training data. Other companies doubling down on AI have slashed their numbers, too. The Block CEO Jack Dorsey cut almost half the company's workforce in early March, citing gains in AI. Amazon, which announced plans to spend a whopping $200bn in one year in February, has laid off at least 30,000 workers in the last six months. Oracle, which is struggling with the debt load of its multibillion-dollar investment in data centers, told employees last month that it would be cutting thousands of jobs, too.

Meta to lay off 8,000 as part of AI efficiency push

Why it matters: The cuts come as Meta looks to offset rising AI infrastructure costs. Zoom out: Meta's capital expenditures have ballooned in recent years, sparking investor concerns that excessive AI spending will eat into profits. * In January, the company said it expects capex to soar by at least 60% this year compared with 2025, "driven by increased investment to support our Meta Superintelligence Labs efforts and core business." * Free cash flow, meanwhile, is expected to plunge 83% year over year. Reality check: Meta is no stranger to large-scale cuts. * Layoffs affecting more than 20,000 workers jump-started Meta's pivot to efficiency in 2022 and 2023. The big picture: Many Big Tech companies are eyeing layoffs as a way to appeal to investors in the AI era. * Amazon said it would cut around 16,000 workers this year as part of a restructuring tied to its AI investments. * Block, the parent company to Square, CashApp and Tidal, said it would cut around 4,000 -- or half of its workforce. * Salesforce announced roughly 1,000 cuts linked to AI automation. * Snap Inc. also said it would cut around 1,000 jobs, representing around 16% of its workforce. * Microsoft said Thursday it would offer buyouts to 7% of staff. What to watch: The news follows a report that Meta plans to record employees' keystrokes to gather data to train its AI models, improving their ability to mimic how humans interact with computers.

Meta layoffs to begin May 20, cutting 8,000 workers

Roughly 8,000 employees -- close to 10% of Meta $META's global headcount -- are slated to lose their jobs starting May 20 in what sources describe to Reuters as the first of several planned rounds of cuts. Further reductions are expected later in the year, though sources say no decisions on dates or scope have been locked in for those subsequent rounds. How quickly those later cuts proceed will depend in part on how AI capabilities evolve, sources told Reuters. The company's most recent annual filing put its total headcount at just under 79,000 as of the end of last year. Among the units facing cuts in May are Reality Labs, recruiting, sales, global operations, and the Facebook social division. State-required WARN Act notices filed in California list 124 job eliminations at Meta's Burlingame location and 74 at its Sunnyvale campus, with effective dates of May 22 and May 29 respectively, according to The Next Web. The restructuring is tied to a sharp increase in AI investment. To fund its AI buildout -- encompassing data centers, GPUs, and the infrastructure underlying its models -- Meta has projected 2026 capital spending of between $115 billion and $135 billion, a figure that would represent roughly twice what it disbursed in 2025. Depreciation and operating costs tied to the data center expansion will increasingly pressure earnings, CFO Susan Li cautioned, describing the outlook as a "significant acceleration in infrastructure expense growth." The company shed 700 positions spanning at least five divisions in March and has since overhauled its Reality Labs organizational structure. Engineers drawn from across Meta's business units have been moved into an Applied AI Engineering division, whose mandate centers on building agents capable of autonomous coding and multi-step task execution. Reuters also reported that a portion of employees will be reassigned to Meta Small Business, a division the company established last month. Earlier this year, Meta cut between 10% and 15% of its Reality Labs workforce in January and shut down several VR game studios. The May round marks a shift from those targeted reductions to a companywide restructuring. Meta declined to comment on the timing or scope of the planned cuts. The cuts come despite a strong financial position. Despite its heavy spending on artificial intelligence, Reuters notes that Meta closed out last year with revenue exceeding $200 billion and net profit of $60 billion. The closest precedent for the current cuts is the 2022-2023 period when Zuckerberg branded his cost-cutting campaign the "Year of Efficiency" and erased roughly 21,000 positions -- a response to a cratering stock price and hiring projections rooted in pandemic-era demand that never materialized. When Reuters revealed last month that internal discussions had touched on reductions of 20% or beyond, a company spokesperson pushed back, telling The Next Web the coverage amounted to "speculative reporting about theoretical approaches."

Meta Will Lay Off 8,000 Employees as AI Focus Intensifies - Decrypt

Other tech firms have similarly announced large layoffs tied to the rise of AI tools. Meta informed workers of sweeping layoffs Thursday, the New York Times reported, targeting roughly 8,000 employees -- about 10% of its global workforce -- while also eliminating 6,000 unfilled positions, as the Facebook and Instagram parent company funnels unprecedented resources into artificial intelligence development. The cuts were outlined in an internal memo from Janelle Gale, Meta's chief people officer, who framed the reductions as a necessary trade-off to fund the company's broader strategic ambitions. Meta confirmed the layoffs to the publication. "We're doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we're making," Gale wrote. "This is not an easy trade-off and it will mean letting go of people who have made meaningful contributions to Meta during their time here." The announcement arrives as tech giants across Silicon Valley accelerate AI spending while simultaneously slimming their payrolls. Microsoft said Thursday it is offering buyouts to 7% of its workforce, and Block, the fintech company behind Square and Cash App, announced in February it was eliminating 40% of its employees, or over 4,000 roles. Both companies cited AI-driven efficiency gains as a central rationale. At Meta, which employed more than 78,000 people at the end of 2025, the layoffs reflect CEO Mark Zuckerberg's ongoing campaign to reshape the company around AI. Zuckerberg has publicly predicted that AI systems will eventually absorb much of the work currently performed by human engineers and other technical staff. The cuts are particularly notable given Meta's financial trajectory. Revenue surged 24 percent in the fourth quarter of 2025, which Zuckerberg credited to AI-enhanced advertising tools. Yet the company is projecting capital expenditures of up to $135 billion this year -- nearly double last year's spending -- largely directed toward AI infrastructure. Affected U.S. employees will be notified May 20 and will receive severance packages including 16 weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks for each year of service. Meta's stock price dipped more than 2% to finish the trading day around $659 per share.

Meta axes 8,000 jobs to fund AI spending, Microsoft to follow suit

Two of the world's biggest tech companies are shrinking their headcounts -- Meta through layoffs, Microsoft through buyouts -- as the AI spending race heats up. Meta is cutting roughly 8,000 jobs or around 10% of its workforce as it funnels ever more cash into artificial intelligence and the sky-high salaries needed to attract AI talent. The company confirmed the cuts on Thursday, framing them as a drive for efficiency to free up investment in priority areas of the business. Bloomberg, which first reported the news, also said Meta plans to leave around 6,000 vacancies unfilled. Meta has already told investors its costs will balloon significantly next year, to somewhere between $162bn (€143bn) and $169bn (€150bn), driven by infrastructure spending and the increasingly eye-watering pay packets it is offering AI specialists. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives was upbeat about the cuts in a note to investors, arguing Meta was using AI tools to "automate tasks that once required large teams, allowing the company to streamline operations and reduce costs while maintaining productivity [and] driving an increased need for a leaner operating structure." Also on Thursday, Microsoft said it was offering voluntary buyouts to thousands of US employees. The software giant plans to extend offers in early May to around 8,750 workers, roughly 7% of its US workforce, according to two people familiar with the plan who were not authorised to speak publicly. Unlike the blunter instrument of mass layoffs used by Meta and Oracle, Microsoft's approach gives staff the option to leave on their own terms. The savings, however, are likely driven by the same underlying pressure, namely the enormous cost of building out AI infrastructure. Microsoft has spent billions running an ever-expanding global network of data centres powering cloud computing, AI systems and its own suite of productivity tools, including the AI assistant Copilot. According to CNBC, which featured a memo from Microsoft's chief people officer Amy Coleman in their reporting, the company said it wanted to give eligible employees "the choice to take that next step on their own terms, with generous company support".

Meta plans 10% layoffs as AI spending soars: source

New York (AFP) - Meta plans to cut a tenth of its workforce, looking for productivity gains from its remaining workers as it invests heavily in artificial intelligence. Meta will lay off about 8,000 employees and leave thousands of other positions unfilled next month, a source told AFP. The move comes as co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg makes a priority of delivering "superintelligence" in a costly AI race against rivals including Amazon, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI. Reports on Thursday also indicated that Microsoft is looking to trim its ranks with voluntary buyouts of some US employees in an unprecedented move by the tech stalwart founded in 1975. About seven percent of US employees at Microsoft were reported to be eligible for an offer aimed at workers senior director level or lower whose years of employment and age add up to 70 or more, according to a CNBC report. Microsoft, which has also been pouring billions of dollars into AI, did not respond to a request for comment. Meta and Microsoft are both set to report quarterly earnings next week. Meta in January reported quarterly earnings that topped market expectations, as revenue grew along with investments in AI. Meanwhile costs tallied $35.15 billion, an increase of 40 percent from the same period a year earlier, the earnings reported noted. Capital expenses, including infrastructure such as data centers to power AI, were $22.14 billion in the quarter, according to the company. Meta anticipated capital expenditures in the $115 billion to $135 billion range this fiscal year, driven by increased investment in Meta Superintelligence Labs and its core business. "I'm looking forward to advancing personal superintelligence for people around the world in 2026," Zuckerberg said on an earnings call. Meta is locked in a bitter rivalry with other tech behemoths racing to invest heavily in AI, aiming to ensure the technology generates profits in the not-so-distant future. Most analysts believe Meta will make the investment pay off by improving advertising efficiency and creating new opportunities, such as with its smart glasses through a partnership with Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica.

Meta says it will lay off 10% of its workforce

Meta is planning to lay off approximately 8,000 employees and eliminate another 6,000 open roles as it seeks to reduce costs amid its massive bet on artificial intelligence. With approximately 78,000 employees at the end of 2025, the cuts will affect about 10% of the company's existing workforce. In an internal memo, a Meta executive did not explicitly mention AI when discussing the cuts but said they were needed to compensate for spending elsewhere. Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, planned to double its AI spending in 2026 to about $135 billion from $72 billion last year. "We're doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we're making," Janelle Gale, Meta's chief people officer, said in the memo to employees. "This is not an easy tradeoff and it will mean letting go of people who have made meaningful contributions to Meta during their time here." The internal memo was first reported by Bloomberg News. A representative for the company confirmed to NBC News that the report was accurate. Reuters first reported on Meta's planned workforce reductions last week and said more were planned for later this year. Layoffs directly attributable to AI, where human roles are explicitly replaced with some form of non-human labor, remain relatively rare. Instead, many companies are dramatically scaling back hiring for roles that existing employees might be able to perform with the help of AI. At the same time, analysts say large tech companies like Meta, as well as Microsoft and Amazon, have been forced to reduce overall headcount to make up for the billions they have poured into building out AI infrastructure, like data centers. Earlier Wednesday, multiple outlets reported that Microsoft planned to offer voluntary buyouts to more than 8,000 employees -- mostly older workers -- from its 125,000 U.S. workforce. Amazon announced cuts affecting 16,000 roles earlier this year. Investors are becoming more circumspect about whether Meta's and Microsoft's AI bets will pay off. Microsoft shares are down about 20% from all-time highs reached last August, while Meta's have declined more than 10% over the same period. That's even as the broader, tech-focused Nasdaq Composite index has mostly returned to record levels. Amazon has been more immune to the drawdowns: Its stock hit a new all-time high this week.

Meta to cut 8,000 jobs as it charges into AI

Alain Sherter is a senior managing editor with CBS News. He covers business, economics, money and workplace issues for CBS MoneyWatch. Meta plans to lay off roughly 8,000 employees, or 10% of its workforce, in a move to slash costs as the technology company pushes deeper into artificial intelligence. In an internal memo sent to workers, Meta said the job cuts are intended to make the company more efficient and to offset its other investments. The layoffs will start on May 20, the company confirmed. More U.S. employers are pointing to AI for recent decisions to eliminate staff, including companies such as Pinterest and chemical maker Dow. Meanwhile, tech giants are engaged in an arms race to build out their AI capabilities, including building hundreds of data centers or buying AI startups. More layoffs at Meta could be in the works later this year as the company seeks to reduce costs and further develop its AI capabilities, Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said in a report on Thursday. "We believe that this is part of Meta's strategy to ... leverage AI tools to automate tasks that once required large teams, allowing the company to streamline operations and reduce costs while maintaining productivity, driving an increased need for a leaner operating structure," he said. In a January regulatory filing, Meta said its AI plans include delivering "personal superintelligence for everyone." "We are also working to develop the next generation of AI models and advance our vision to build superintelligence, which we define as AI that surpasses human intelligence," the company said in its filing. "Although it is inherently difficult to predict when superintelligence may be achieved, we are investing now because we believe this has the potential to begin a new era of individual empowerment, where people can direct superintelligence towards what they value in their own lives." Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg described superintelligence in a blog post last year as a potentially powerful tool for enhancing prosperity.

Meta to lay off 10pc of its workforce amid an AI push

The organisation has also called a halt to previously announced plans to fill 6,000 vacant roles. Meta has announced that it will be letting go of 10pc of its workforce, roughly 8,000 employees, as it reportedly seeks to mitigate the costs of heavy AI spending. In a memo issued to employees on Thursday (23 April), Meta explained the layoffs, which were alluded to in March by Reuters, are to come into effect towards the end of May. Bloomberg published the details of the memo, which was written by Meta's chief people officer Janelle Gale, who said, "We're doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we're making. "I know this is unwelcome news and confirming this puts everyone in an uneasy state, but we feel this is the best path forward, given the circumstances." US-based employees who are losing their jobs will receive a severance package which will include 16 weeks of base pay and two weeks for every year of employment. Packages outside the US will be similar but will vary by country, as will local timelines and processes. Gale said, "For notifications, we will follow the same process we have before, on 20 May anyone who is impacted will receive an email to their work and personal accounts, please make sure your personal email is updated in Workday. "I know this leaves everyone with nearly a month of ambiguity which is incredibly unsettling. We will try to answer your questions here in the comments but as we're still working through the details we aren't able to share much more until later in May." The organisation is also calling a halt to previously announced plans to recruit an additional 6,000 people for currently open roles. Previously layoff announcements include the loss of 15 jobs at the Irish location and 600 roles at Meta's Superintelligence Labs. In recent times, Meta has prioritised investing heavily in artificial intelligence. Earlier this month the organisation agreed to pay CoreWeave roughly $21bn to access the company's AI cloud capacity until December 2032. The new agreement came after Meta signed a $14.2bn deal with the company in September, taking the total CoreWeave has in Meta contracts to $35bn. Meta isn't the only high-profile tech company announcing significant layoffs. This week Microsoft revealed plans to offer its US employees voluntary buyouts. Roughly 7pc of the company's employees will be eligible to apply and will be available workers at a senior director level and below whose years of employment and age add up to 70 or more. Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Meta cuts 10% of staff, cancels 6,000 open roles in AI efficiency push - SiliconANGLE

Meta Platforms Inc. told staff today that it is planning to lay off about 8,000 employees, or roughly 10% of its workforce and cancel 6,000 open roles in an efficiency drive aimed at offsetting a massive surge in artificial intelligence spending. The cuts take effect on May 20 and according to Bloomberg, were disclosed in an internal memo from Meta Chief People Officer Janelle Gale. In the memo, Gale reportedly wrote that the reductions would allow Meta to "run the company more efficiently" and "offset the other investments we're making." The reduction in headcount is Meta's largest since the 21,000-plus job cuts the company pushed through in 2022 and 2023, a period Zuckerberg called a "year of efficiency." Meta's capital expenditure guidance for 2026 sits as high as $135 billion, nearly double 2025's roughly $72 billion, with the bulk earmarked for data centers, custom silicon and other AI infrastructure. Meta still trails OpenAI Group PBC, Google LLC and Anthropic PBC in generative AI. The layoffs are said to be structural rather than performance-based, with Meta reportedly reorganizing remaining teams into AI-focused "pods" and moving engineers from across the business into its Applied AI organization. U.S. workers affected by the cuts will receive 16 weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks for every year of service, along with 18 months of health coverage. Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg had previously laid out the logic behind the new cuts on Meta's January earnings call, when he told analysts that "we're starting to see projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person." Meta has steadily pushed internal tools that use its Llama models to write code, generate marketing copy and handle customer support work. The new job cuts have been generally welcomed by Wall Street. Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said in a note to investors that Meta's strategy is to use AI tools to "automate tasks that once required large teams, allowing the company to streamline operations and reduce costs while maintaining productivity, driving an increased need for a leaner operating structure." Today's announcement is the third round of Meta job cuts in 2026. The first round came in January, when Meta cut about 1,500 Reality Labs staff, or roughly 10% of the virtual and augmented reality unit, in cuts confirmed in an internal post from Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth that also closed four internal virtual reality game studios. In March, the company cut about 700 more staff across Reality Labs, Facebook, recruiting, sales and global operations. Meta's latest round of layoffs continues a trend that has seen tech employers slash jobs as AI continues to mature. Approximately 95,000 tech workers have been laid off in 2026 to date, led by Oracle Corp.'s 30,000-person cut and Amazon.com Inc.'s elimination of 16,000 roles in January, with analysts attributing close to half of the cuts directly to AI-driven automation.

Meta slashes 10 percent of workforce

Meta informed staff this week it will cut 10 percent of workers as it invests billions into artificial intelligence products. The memo, sent Thursday by Meta's Chief People Office Janelle Gale, said the cut will take place on May 20, and 6,000 open roles will be closed. The memo was published by Bloomberg and the company confirmed the news to The Hill. Gale said the move is part of the company's "continued effort to run the company more efficiently" and "allow us to offset the other investments we're making." It comes as Meta invests hundreds of billions of dollars into AI infrastructure as it targets superintelligence, a hypothetical agent that surpasses the intelligence of humans. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has warned investors of increasing 2026 expenses due to infrastructure costs and employee compensation, The Associated Press reported. Gale acknowledged Meta's planned layoffs were leaked to the media, writing, "Normally, we would want to nail down more details before communicating about this broadly." "I know this is unwelcome news and confirming this puts everyone in an uneasy state, but we feel this is the best path forward, given the circumstances," she wrote in the memo, according to Bloomberg. "I know this leaves everyone with nearly a month of ambiguity, which is incredibly distressing," the official added. Technology giant Microsoft also said Thursday it would offer voluntary buyouts to thousands of U.S. employees, the AP reported, citing two people familiar with the plan. These offers will be given to about 7 percent of its U.S. workforce, the news wire added.

Meta set to layoff 10% of its staff as it pushes for AI

Meta is planning a first wave of layoffs on May 20, sources told Reuters. Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, is set to lay off 10% of its global workforce as the company refocuses on artificial intelligence, according to an internal memo shared with employees and reviewed by Bloomberg. This memo confirms rumors that Reuters had first reported on Sunday, April 19. This is expected to be the first round of sweeping layoffs, set for May 20, with a second round scheduled for the second half of the year, as the company aims to reduce its workforce by 20%, according to three sources who spoke with Reuters. These layoffs follow a trend in the tech industry, which has seen a large wave of layoffs as companies replace white-collar workers with AI-assisted tools. Earlier this year, Amazon announced it would lay off about 30,000 employees across its Amazon Web Services, retail, Prime Video, and human resources departments as it expanded its use of AI tools. As of April 23, it's unclear which of Meta's 90 global offices will be affected by the layoffs. At the end of 2025, Meta employed 78,865 people worldwide, according to documents it shared with the federal government. USATODAY reached out to Meta for comment on the sweeping layoffs, but had not heard back by the time of publication. Meta's shift to AI At the beginning of the year, Meta announced it would lay off about 1,500 workers, or about 10 percent of its Reality Labs division, as the company shifted away from its metaverse business model and into its Meta Superintelligence Labs. In April, Meta unveiled the "Muse Spark" family of artificial intelligence models, which it expected to compete with already established AI models like Gemini 3.1, created by Google, and GPT 5.4, created by OpenAI. This announcement stemmed from Meta's 2025 shift in focus to create a natively coded artificial intelligence. The company had fallen behind in the AI race as Meta had put much of its investments into the metaverse. Meta initially invested $10 billion into the company to fund its research into new technologies. However, the company's 2024 fourth-quarter earnings revealed that Meta had lost more than $60 billion in operating costs. But with the metaverse's failure, CEO Mark Zuckerberg began pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into AI. "We are at an exciting point for our company, where we have continued runway to improve our core services today as well as the opportunity to build new AI-powered experiences and services that will transform how people engage with our products in the future," Meta said in its 2025 third-quarter report. "Next year will enable us to continue to deliver strong revenue growth in 2026, while our progress on AI models and products will position us to capitalize on new revenue opportunities in the years to come." Noe Padilla is a Northern California Reporter for USA Today. Contact him at [email protected], follow him on X @1NoePadilla or on Bluesky @noepadilla.bsky.social. Sign up for the TODAY Californian newsletter or follow us on Facebook at TODAY Californian.

Meta layoffs 8,000 employees as it continues to invest in AI

Around 10% of the company's workforce has been affected by the latest round of cuts. It was only around a month ago that a report started circulating with the suggestion Meta was about to make an immense wave of layoffs, cutting around 20% of its global workforce, removing around 16,000 employees, and all in an effort of further making funding available for its artificial intelligence endeavours. While this report wasn't entirely accurate, it clearly held some credence, as now it's reported that Meta has begun the process of laying off 8,000 employees, or 10% of its total workforce, all to free up resources for more AI-related investments. This news was broken by Bloomberg, and soon corroborated by BBC News, with staff supposedly being informed yesterday, on April 23, with this move also coinciding with Meta closing around 6,000 open job listings. Meta has steadily been reducing its workforce over the years, with frequent layoff rounds happening. This wave will be the largest the company has initiated since 2023, showing that spending on AI is becoming increasingly important to the technology and social media behemoth.

When Will Meta Begin Layoffs? Report Outlines Details Of 8,000 Cuts Amid AI Focus - Goldman Sachs Group (

The specifics of the cuts have not yet been finalized, Reuters reported on Friday, citing sources familiar with the plans. The sources disclosed that the company's executives may adjust their plans as they observe developments in artificial intelligence capabilities. Meta did not immediately respond to Benzinga's request for comment. Zuckerberg Bets Big On AI Amid Leaner Operations Despite Meta's significant layoffs in 2022 and 2023, the company's stock was struggling at the time. However, it is currently in a more stable financial position. Meta's shares have risen by 5.86% since the beginning of the year. The impending layoffs at Meta have been a topic of discussion for some time. In March, the company hinted at significant workforce reductions to fund large-scale AI investments while tightening operating costs. Goldman Sachs Flags Long-Term Worker Risk Amid the layoffs in the tech industry, the prediction market is betting on whether 2026 will see more layoffs than 2025. Data from Kalshi, a federally authorized betting platform, shows that over $14.6 million has been bet on the contract "More tech layoffs in 2026 than in 2025?" Some analysts, however, argue that many tech layoffs reflect post-pandemic overhiring corrections rather than genuine AI-driven displacement. Stock Performance Meta has a market capitalization of $1.74 trillion, with a 52-week high of $796.25 and a 52-week low of $479.80. The large-cap stock is up 37.30% year to date. Price Action: According to Benzinga Pro data, META closed at $688.55 on Friday, up 1.73%. Benzinga's Edge Stock Rankings highlight that META has a Growth score of 84.11. Image via Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

Meta Prepares 8,000 Layoffs to Offset AI Infrastructure Investments | PYMNTS.com

The company will announce the layoffs on May 20, according to the report. Meta announced the layoffs earlier than it had intended because details of the plan had already leaked. Bloomberg said Reuters reported on the plan earlier this month. "We're doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we're making," the memo said, per the report. Reached by PYMNTS, Meta declined to comment on the report. Both the Bloomberg report and the earlier Reuters one attributed the layoffs to the company's effort to offset the investments it has been making in artificial intelligence infrastructure. PYMNTS reported in March that plans to spend between $115 billion and $135 billion this year as it races to construct data centers, chips and other AI infrastructure. This level of spending puts it in the company of some of the biggest investors in AI infrastructure, including Amazon, Google and Microsoft. It was reported in January that Meta was cutting 10% of the jobs in its Reality Labs unit, which employed about 15,000 people. That move was characterized as part of a larger plan by the company to reduce its focus on virtual reality products as it concentrates on other AI wearables. In March, Meta said that over the next few years, it will shift the content enforcement efforts on its apps from the current third-party vendors to the company's new AI systems. It was reported in January 2025 that Meta was cutting 5% of its workforce in a move it said would focus on "low performers" and ready the company to build AI, glasses and the future of social media. In March 2023, Meta said it planned to lay off 10,000 employees after cutting 11,000 jobs in November 2022. The company also said at the time that it would freeze hiring for another 5,000 roles that had been open. When announcing the November 2022 cuts, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the move was driven by online returning to prior trends after having increased during the pandemic.

Meta to Lay Off 8,000 Employees Amid Tech's AI-Driven Cuts

Netflix Sets Big $25 Billion Stock Buyback Amid Lagging Share Price Meta Platforms Inc. is laying off some 8,000 employees, about 10 percent of its staff, as it seeks to shift resources to other areas like its aggressive artificial intelligence investments. The company, which owns Instagram and Facebook, informed employees of the looming cuts Thursday, with impacted employees set to be notified next month. Meta will also close 6,000 open job listings. The cuts were announced by a memo sent by the company's head of human resources, which was viewed by The Hollywood Reporter. A request for comment had not been returned as of writing. "Normally, we would want to nail down more details before communicating about this broadly, but since this has leaked, I want to share what I can right now," wrote Meta chief people officer Janelle gale in the memo. "I know this is unwelcome news and confirming this puts everyone in an uneasy state, but we feel this is the best path forward, given the circumstances." Meta's cuts come a week after Snap laid off 1,000 employees, citing its own push to integrate AI more tightly into its work. Amazon laid off some 16,000 jobs earlier this year in an effort to reduce bureaucracy at the company. Also on Thursday, Microsoft announced a voluntary buyout program for about 7 percent of its workforce, as the tech giant also seeks to restructure itself for what seems like a new era. Microsoft and Meta, like its counterparts Google and Amazon, are pouring billions of dollars into AI investments, including in data centers and compute, and leaning into leveraging AI tools to move faster and more efficiently. But the cuts also underscore the uncertain impact that AI will have on the overall economy, not only because of the high cost of compute, but because of the risk to the overall job market.

Meta announces 8,000 job cuts to fund its AI expenditure

Meta has announced 8,000 jobs, or roughly 10 per cent of its workforce, will be axed, as the platform ramps up its spending on artificial intelligence. The tech giant, founded by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, announced the major job cull in a memo sent out to its current employees. The memo, which was viewed by the Wall Street Journal, said the tough call is a necessary step for the company, as AI offers a higher rate of efficiency. Meta's Chief People Officer Janelle Gale wrote that the trade-off was "not easy". "This is not an easy trade-off, and it will mean letting go of people who have made meaningful contributions to Meta during their time here," Gale wrote. The company also had 6,000 jobs advertised, which the memo explains will no longer be available. Zuckerberg has been teasing the company's plans to rely on AI technologies since announcing job cuts in 2022. The company, which had an 87,000-strong roster of employees in 2020, according to the Wall Street Journal, is now sitting at 78,865, according to Meta's latest reported data. Earlier this month, Meta rolled out a new system which would track employees' mouse movements, button clicks, and drop-down menu navigation in a move to train AI on the company's systems. A spokesperson for Meta, Andy Stone, said the data would be used to train AI bots and help them improve by understanding everyday tasks. "If we're building agents to help people complete everyday tasks using computers, our models need real examples of how people actually use them," he said. "We will be (sic) tracking things like mouse movements, clicking buttons, and navigating dropdown menus." Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth backed the new move and said the desired outcome is for agents to undertake a large part of the work, according to iTnews. "The vision we are building towards is one where our agents primarily do the work and our role is to direct, review and help them improve," Mr Bosworth said. The announcement follows a long list of tech companies declaring plans to adopt more streamlined strategies through artificial intelligence, ultimately kicking thousands of employees to the curb. Software company Atlassian, which is led by billionaire climate activist Mike Cannon-Brookes, told investors it is firing 1,600 workers in March of this year. In April, Life360 CEO Lauren Antonoff announced job cuts as the company shifted its focus towards AI technology. At the time of the announcement, she said companies who do not keep up with AI, and instead challenge it, "risk falling behind in ways that are hard to recover from". "AI isn't just making existing work faster - it's changing what's possible. Companies that go AI-native will compound that advantage over time," said Mrs Antonoff. SkyNews.com.au has reached out to Meta for comment.

Meta to ax 8,000 jobs as Zuckerberg doubles down on AI and white-collar bloodbath picks up

Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta has confirmed it plans to slash about 8,000 jobs -- roughly 10% of its workforce -- informing employees of the sweeping cuts on Thursday. The Facebook parent disclosed the layoffs in a staff memo, signaling that the company is moving ahead with a massive workforce reduction as it pours billions into artificial intelligence. The cuts were expected to take effect May 20, with another 6,000 open roles that Meta previously planned to fill getting eliminated. "I know this is unwelcome news and confirming this puts everyone in an uneasy state, but we feel this is the best path forward, given the circumstances," Chief People Officer Janelle Gale wrote in the memo obtained by Bloomberg News. Gale said the layoffs are part of an effort to "run the company more efficiently" while offsetting the heavy investments Meta is making in AI. Meta said affected employees will receive severance that includes at least 16 weeks of base pay plus an additional two weeks for every year of service, along with extended health coverage and career support as they exit the company. The Post has sought comment from Meta. The announcement confirms earlier reporting that the tech giant was preparing deep cuts as it reshapes its business around next-generation computing and automation. Meta had nearly 79,000 employees at the start of the year, and the latest reductions rank among the biggest in the company's history. The tech giant already trimmed headcount in recent months, including layoffs in its Reality Labs division and cuts targeting lower-performing staff. Zuckerberg has been ramping up spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure, including data centers, servers and advanced models designed to compete with rivals. He has made clear that AI will fundamentally reshape the company's workforce, saying earlier this year: "I think 2026 is going to be the year that AI starts to dramatically change the way that we work." Internally, employees have been encouraged to adopt AI tools to handle tasks like coding and writing, as the company shifts toward smaller, more efficient teams. Meta's internal push toward artificial intelligence has also sparked backlash among employees, particularly over new tools designed to monitor workplace activity and train AI systems. Staffers have voiced discomfort with the tracking software -- which logs keystrokes, mouse movements and on-screen activity -- as the company leans more heavily on real-world data to build AI-powered tools. Meta is just one of many major tech companies laying off thousands of workers as AI gains adoption in the US and beyond. US tech employment had its worst start to the year since 2023, according to a report executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said in a report published earlier this month. The first three months of 2026 saw 52,050 tech layoffs -- a 40% jump from the same period last year, the report found. Last month, AI led the list of reasons employers gave for tech layoffs -- accounting for 15,341 of the firings, or 25% of the total. In February, the figure was 10%. Oracle in March announced thousands of layoffs amid declining stock prices while taking on debt for AI investments. In January, Amazon said it would axe 16,000 corporate employees, with the company suggesting AI will do their work, instead.

Meta Plans 8,000 Job Cuts Despite Strong Profits and Growth

Meta plans to cut nearly 8,000 jobs from May as it reshapes teams and sharpens its focus on AI. The move signals a shift toward leaner operations, even as the company remains profitable, underlining how big tech is resetting roles and priorities in 2026. Meta is reducing headcount as it moves deeper into artificial intelligence. There is significant investment in the AI toolkits, reducing the need for manpower in various functions driven by automation and efficiency gains. The company is reducing the number of layers in the managerial structure to speed up decision-making processes. Routine work is reduced while Meta allocates more resources to generative AI technology.

Meta targets May 20 for first wave of layoffs; additional cuts later in 2026

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO - Meta intends to conduct a first wave of sweeping layoffs planned for this year on May 20, with more coming later, three sources familiar with the plans told Reuters. The Facebook and Instagram owner will lay off about 10 per cent of its global workforce, or close to 8,000 employees, in that initial round, one of the sources said. The company is planning further layoffs in the second half of the year, the three sources said, although details of those cuts, including date and size, were not yet settled. Executives may adjust their plans as they observe developments in artificial intelligence capabilities, the sources added. Reuters reported last month that the company was planning to lay off 20 per cent or more of its global workforce. Meta declined to comment on the timing or scope of planned cuts. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into AI as he seeks to dramatically reshape his company's inner workings around the technology, reflecting a broader pattern among major U.S. companies this year, particularly in the tech sector. Amazon.com similarly has trimmed 30,000 corporate employees in recent months, representing nearly 10 per cent of its white-collar workers, while in February the fintech company Block chopped nearly half of its staff. In both of those cases, executives tied the cuts to efficiency gains from artificial intelligence. Layoffs.fyi, a website tracking tech job cuts around the world, reported that 73,212 employees have lost their jobs so far this year. For all of 2024, the figure was 153,000. Meta's layoffs this year will be the social media giant's most significant since a restructuring in late 2022 and early 2023 that it dubbed the "year of efficiency," when it eliminated about 21,000 jobs. At that time, Meta's stock was in freefall and the company was struggling to correct for COVID-era growth assumptions that ultimately proved unsustainable. The company is in a more comfortable financial position this time, but executives envision a future of fewer management layers and greater efficiency brought about by AI-assisted workers. Meta's shares are up 3.68 per cent since the start of the year, although they are down from a record high achieved last summer. Last year, it generated more than US$200 billion of revenue and achieved a $60 billion profit despite outsized spending on artificial intelligence. Menlo Park, California-based Meta employed nearly 79,000 people as of Dec. 31, according to its latest filing. In recent weeks, Meta has reorganized teams in its Reality Labs division and transferred engineers from throughout the company into a new "Applied AI" organization tasked with accelerating the development of AI agents that can write code and carry out complex tasks autonomously. One of the sources said some staffers also would be transferred into Meta Small Business, a unit set up last month, as part of the restructuring.

Meta to cut 8,000 jobs -- 10% of workforce -- in major bloodbath next month: report

Mark Zuckerberg's Meta plans to lay off 10% of its workforce in a companywide bloodbath next month - with even more cuts to follow later in the year, according to a report Friday. The Instagram parent will ax nearly 8,000 employees in the initial round set for May 20, Reuters reported. More layoffs are expected in the second half of the year, but Meta executives have yet to decide how extensive they will be or exactly when they will occur. Meta's plans could be adjusted based on the state of the company's artificial intelligence capabilities, sources ominously told the outlet. The bloodbath is unfolding as Zuckerberg shifts more resources toward the development of AI. Meta, which is scrambling to keep pace with rivals like Anthropic and OpenAI, has teed up $135 billion in capital spending this year alone. Last month, Reuters reported that Meta was planning to cut more than 20% of its workforce this year, potentially affecting some 15,000 workers. That would be Meta's most extensive job cuts since Zuckerberg slashed more than 20,000 jobs in late 2022 and early 2023 as part of its infamous "year of efficiency" push. A Meta spokesperson previously said that the initial Reuters article was a "speculative report about theoretical approaches." The company's stock rose nearly 2% in Friday trading. The social media giant had nearly 79,000 employees globally as of Dec. 31, according to company filings. Zuckerberg has set about integrating AI tools into every facet of Meta's business - to the point that the company is even developing a "photorealistic" 3D clone of the billionaire to chat with employees. The layoffs at Meta are just the latest sign of AI-related upheaval that has swept through the tech industry in recent months. Instagram rival Snap slashed about 1,000 jobs earlier this week, with CEO Evan Spiegel stating that AI would "enable our teams to reduce repetitive work, increase velocity, and better support our community, partners, and advertisers." Elsewhere, financial tech firm Block said in February it would cut 40% of its workforce, or more than 4,000 employees, while pivoting to a full embrace of AI tools. "Within the next year, I believe the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes. I'd rather get there honestly and on our own terms than be forced into it reactively," Block CEO Jack Dorsey wrote in an open letter. Amazon axed an eye-popping 30,000 corporate jobs last fall while embracing AI to boost productivity.

Thousands of jobs to be cut at tech giants Meta and Microsoft | BreakingNews

By Henry Saker-Clark, Press Association Deputy Business Editor Meta and Microsoft have revealed plans to cut thousands of jobs as the technology giants invest heavily in AI to drive growth. Facebook and Instagram owner Meta said it plans to cut around 8,000 jobs, or 10 per cent of its workforce, to help boost efficiency. In a memo sent to staff, the company said the move will allow new investments in parts of the business. It is not yet clear how many jobs in Ireland, where Meta has its European headquarters, will be affected. The tech giant employs around 1,800 people in the Republic. Meta also said it will leave around 6,000 job posts unfilled as part of the shake-up. The cuts come amid a backdrop of recording capital spending plans as Meta seeks to keep pace with its rivals amid intense competition surrounding AI technology. Chief executive and founder Mark Zuckerberg is leading aggressive spending on talent and technology infrastructure to support new AI products, including chatbots and large language models. Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "Reports of further headcount reductions at Meta come as little surprise and, while unfortunate for all involved, should be taken as a broadly positive signal. "With heavy investment in top AI talent, trimming elsewhere points to a sharper focus on the individuals driving the next leg of growth." Meanwhile, Microsoft has taken a different approach to cut its workforce, launching a major voluntary redundancy programme. Microsoft plans to make the offers in early May to about 8,750 people, or 7 per cent of its US workforce. Both firms will brief investors with trading updates next week.

Meta may cut 8000 jobs on 20 May despite making billions in profit: Report

Meta is preparing for another major round of job cuts, with the first wave expected to begin on 20 May, according to a Reuters report. The move could affect around 10 per cent of the company's global workforce, which works out to nearly 8,000 employees. More layoffs are also expected later in 2026, although the final scale and timing of those cuts have not been decided yet. The report suggests the decision is tied to Meta's growing focus on artificial intelligence, as the company looks to reshape teams, reduce layers of management and spend more aggressively on AI infrastructure. This would mark Meta's biggest workforce reduction since its earlier 'year of efficiency' restructuring. Also read: We are not just making products for India, we are gearing up for the world stage: Noise founder Amit Khatri The company, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has not publicly confirmed the plans. Reuters said the details were shared by people familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity because the discussions are private. If the May round of layoffs goes ahead as reported, it would be another major chapter in Meta's long-running internal reset. Back in 2022 and 2023, the company laid off around 21,000 employees across multiple rounds. At the time, CEO Mark Zuckerberg described that period as the company's 'year of efficiency', a phrase that quickly became linked to Meta's cost-cutting push. What makes this fresh round different is that Meta is not in financial trouble. In fact, Reuters noted that the company generated more than $200 billion in revenue last year and posted around $60 billion in profit. Of course, the company's priorities now clearly revolve around AI. Like many major tech firms, Meta is spending heavily on data centres, chips and talent to stay competitive in the fast-moving AI race. At the same time, companies across the sector are rethinking how many people they need in certain roles as automation tools become more capable. Because of this, Layoffs.fyi, a website tracking tech job cuts around the world, reported that 73,212 employees have lost their jobs so far this year. For all of 2024, the figure was 153,000. As per Reuters, Meta has already started reorganising parts of the business. Teams inside Reality Labs, the division behind its virtual and augmented reality efforts, have reportedly been reshuffled. Some engineers have also been moved into a newer Applied AI group, which is focused on building advanced AI systems that can handle coding and more complex tasks. Also read: Our mission is to help 50 million people sleep comfortably: How Optimist wants to change India AC market There are also signs that some employees could be redirected rather than simply removed. Reuters reported that Meta has created a Small Business unit, which may absorb some workers depending on internal needs. Still, for thousands of Meta employees, the uncertainty is likely to be the bigger issue right now.