Meta has announced it will cut 10% of its workforce next month, roughly 8,000 employees. The company also said it would not fill thousands of open positions it had been hiring for. The move comes as Meta spends more than ever on artificial intelligence projects. This year alone, the company will spend $135 billion on AI, roughly equal to what it spent on AI in the previous three years combined.
Why the Cuts Are Happening
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s co-founder and chief executive, had signaled in January that more job cuts were coming. He noted that workers using AI tools had become much more productive. A single person can now complete projects that once 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.
The memo to employees was first reported by Bloomberg. Meta has already cut about 2,000 workers in two smaller rounds of layoffs this year. But employees had been bracing for a much deeper cut for weeks.
The Bigger Trend
Meta is not alone. Amazon has laid off more than 30,000 workers. Oracle has cut more than 10,000. Block, a smaller tech company, laid off nearly half of its staff, more than 4,000 workers. Snap has laid off around 1,000. Nearly all of these companies have cited the growing capabilities of AI technology and increased investment in it as key reasons for needing fewer employees.
On Thursday, Microsoft also told employees it would offer voluntary buyouts to thousands of longer-tenured workers.
Internal Tensions
This week, Meta informed employees that it would begin tracking and logging their interactions with work computers to help train and improve its AI models. One employee called the move “dystopian” given the looming layoffs.
Since 2022, Meta has enacted several rounds of job cuts, shedding tens of thousands of workers. The company had started hiring again, and last year its employee count returned to roughly pre-layoff levels. The upcoming cuts will be Meta’s largest layoff since 2023.
What’s Next
Meta’s internal focus has shifted heavily toward catching up on AI development. But the human cost is mounting. For the thousands of workers facing job loss, the promise of AI productivity may offer little comfort.
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