Meta Platforms is considering major layoffs that could affect 20% or more of its workforce, according to people familiar with the discussions, as the tech giant ramps up massive investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure.
The potential cuts, which have not yet been finalized, come as the company seeks to balance soaring AI spending while preparing for a future in which AI-powered tools allow smaller teams to do more work, News.Az reports, citing Reuters.
Executives have recently informed senior leaders to start planning workforce reductions. However, the company has not set a timeline for the layoffs, and the exact number of affected employees remains uncertain.
A spokesperson for Meta, Andy Stone, described the reports as “speculative reporting about theoretical approaches.”
If Meta moves forward with the proposed 20% reduction, it would become the company’s largest round of layoffs since its major restructuring effort in 2022 and 2023.
At the end of 2025, Meta employed nearly 79,000 people, according to company filings.
The company has already gone through significant workforce reductions in recent years. In November 2022, it laid off 11,000 employees, roughly 13% of its staff at the time. About four months later, another 10,000 jobs were eliminated as part of a restructuring initiative dubbed the “year of efficiency.”
Those cuts were intended to streamline operations and improve profitability following slower growth in the digital advertising market.
Meta’s aggressive AI push is being led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has made generative AI a central priority for the company.
Over the past year, Meta has offered extremely lucrative compensation packages—sometimes worth hundreds of millions of dollars over four years—to attract top AI researchers for a new superintelligence team.
The company has also outlined a massive infrastructure plan, announcing that it intends to spend up to $600 billion building new data centers by 2028 to support advanced AI models and computing capacity.
Earlier this week, Meta acquired Moltbook, a social networking platform designed for AI agents. The company is also reportedly spending more than $2 billion to acquire the Chinese AI startup Manus AI, according to previous reports.
Zuckerberg has increasingly suggested that AI could significantly reduce the need for large teams.
Speaking earlier this year, he said that projects that once required large groups of engineers can now sometimes be handled by a single highly skilled developer using AI tools.
That shift reflects a broader trend across the tech sector, where companies are rethinking workforce size as artificial intelligence becomes more capable.
For example, Amazon confirmed in January that it would cut about 16,000 jobs, nearly 10% of its workforce. Meanwhile, fintech firm Block Inc. recently eliminated almost half of its staff, with CEO Jack Dorsey pointing directly to AI tools enabling companies to operate with smaller teams.
Meta’s heavy investments come after several challenges with its AI models last year.
The company faced criticism over benchmark results related to early versions of its Llama 4 models. It also scrapped plans to release the largest version of the model, known as Behemoth, which had been scheduled for launch in the summer.
Meta’s new superintelligence team is now working on another model called Avocado, though insiders say its performance has not yet met expectations.
Despite these setbacks, Meta continues to push forward with its AI strategy, betting that the technology will transform both its products and the way work is done inside the company.
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