Meta told employees on Monday that it is reassigning 7,000 workers to four new organizations focused on building AI tools and apps, with the new groups using “AI native design structures” and having fewer managers per employee than other parts of the company. The reassignments come two days before the company plans to lay off roughly 8,000 employees (10% of its workforce) on Wednesday, which the company first announced in late April as part of its effort to be more efficient while investing heavily in AI development. Meta has told U.S. employees to work remotely on Wednesday, with layoff emails being sent at 4 a.m. local time, and laid-off workers will receive 16 weeks of severance pay plus two additional weeks for every year worked at Meta. The moves follow a year of mounting employee tension over Meta's AI surveillance program, the recent Agent Transformation Accelerator privacy backlash, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg's plan to spend $115B-$135B on AI infrastructure this year.
