Kali HayesTechnology journalist
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 Thursday that it plans to cut 10% of its workforce, or about 8,000 people. It said it also would not fill the thousands of additional vacant jobs it had hired for.
One of the main reasons for the layoffs is that of Meta. increase in expenses in other areas of the business, including AI, on which it will spend $135bn (£100bn) this year. That’s roughly equivalent to the amount spent on AI over the previous three years combined, according to a person who viewed the memo.
A Meta spokesperson confirmed the planned job cuts but declined to comment further.
Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and chief executive of Meta, made public comments in January that essentially indicated the company would cut jobs again this year.
The Meta boss said he had seen how workers who relied heavily on AI tools had become more productive, noting that a single person could now complete projects that previously would have required a large team.
“I think 2026 will be the year that AI starts to radically change the way we work,” Zuckerberg said.
Last week, the Reuters news agency reported that Meta planned to potentially cut more than 10,000 employees this year. Thursday’s memo to employees was first reported by Bloomberg.
While Meta has already laid off about 2,000 employees in two waves of smaller layoffs this year, employees had been preparing for much larger reductions for weeks as the The BBC previously reported.
Meta’s spending and internal focus have shifted significantly in recent months toward catching up with the development of AI models and tools.
The company informed its employees this week that it would begin tracking and logging their interactions with work computers to help train and improve its AI models, a move one employee called “dystopian” given impending layoffs.
“This company has become obsessed with AI,” they told the BBC.
Since 2022, Meta has carried out several rounds of job cuts, eliminating tens of thousands of workers.
But the company started hiring again, and last year its total number of employees appeared to be about the same level as before its initial layoff.
The upcoming job cuts will be Meta’s largest layoffs since 2023.
A number of other tech companies, most of which are also spending huge sums to build tools and infrastructure for AI technology, have also made numerous job cuts this year.
Block, which is among the smallest tech companies, has laid off nearly half its staff, totaling more than 4,000 workers. And Snap, another small tech company, laid off about 1,000.
Also Thursday, Microsoft told its employees it would offer voluntary buyouts to thousands of workers with longer tenure at the company.
Nearly all companies cited growing capabilities or increased investments in AI technology as a factor in executives’ perceived need to reduce employee numbers.
