Meta lays off 700 to fund AI bet
Meta cut about 700 jobs this week, explicitly framing the reduction as funding for a $169 billion AI pivot and pushing an 'AI‑native' mandate where engineers must 'use AI for everything' with adoption tracked internally. The shift tightens hiring priorities around AI, infrastructure, and measurable AI adoption metrics. (respawn.outlookindia.com) (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
The cuts announced March 25, 2026 affected teams across Reality Labs, Facebook product groups, recruiting, sales and global operations, with the company saying some impacted employees were being offered alternative roles or relocation where possible. (cnbc.com) SEC filings and company disclosures show Meta granted a new tranche of executive stock awards and options to six senior leaders — including CFO Susan Li, CTO Andrew Bosworth, CPO Chris Cox and COO Javier Olivan — that vest only if aggressive share‑price milestones are met. (cnbc.com) In its Q4 2025 earnings materials Meta guided 2026 capital expenditures to a range of $115 billion–$135 billion and forecast full‑year total expenses in a $162 billion–$169 billion band, citing expanded data‑center and AI infrastructure spending as the driver. (s21.q4cdn.com) An internal document reviewed by Business Insider sets concrete engineering targets: the Creation org’s H1 2026 goal that 65% of engineers write more than 75% of their committed code with AI, Scalable ML’s February 2026 target of 50–80% AI‑assisted code, and companywide aims for agent‑assisted changes and high mid‑to‑senior tool adoption. (businessinsider.com) Meta has been running companywide “AI training weeks,” deploying internal tools such as DevMate and Metamate (and sometimes integrating external models like Anthropic’s Claude or Google’s Gemini), while building dashboards and gamified programs to monitor adoption and feed usage data into performance processes. (businessinsider.com) This March action follows a January reduction that eliminated roughly 1,000–1,500 Reality Labs roles and closed several VR studios as the hardware division was pared back earlier in 2026. (cnbc.com) Meta’s newly formed Meta Superintelligence Labs and recent hires — including Alexandr Wang and Nat Friedman — are explicitly tied to the expanded hiring and infrastructure plan disclosed in the earnings materials and executive filings. (cnbc.com)
