Meta reallocates to AI

Meta told employees this week that it will cut about 10% of its workforce and stop hiring for 6,000 open jobs as it shifts more resources into artificial intelligence. (cnbc.com) (npr.org) The cuts are set to begin on May 20 and will affect roughly 8,000 employees, according to an internal memo first reported by Bloomberg and confirmed by Meta to NPR. (npr.org) (techcrunch.com) In the memo, Chief People Officer Janelle Gale said Meta was acting “to run the company more efficiently” and to “offset the other investments” it is making. (npr.org) (nbcnews.com) Those other investments are expensive. In January, Meta said it expected 2026 capital spending of $115 billion to $135 billion, up from about $72 billion in 2025, with the increase tied to artificial intelligence infrastructure and core business needs. (datacenterdynamics.com) (cnbc.com) The April cuts extend a broader shift already underway inside Meta. In January, the company cut more than 1,000 jobs in Reality Labs, the division behind Quest headsets and Horizon Worlds, as it moved money toward wearables and AI work. (cnbc.com) Meta has made similar efficiency drives before. Zuckerberg’s “year of efficiency” in 2023 led to more than 20,000 job cuts, and this new round is the company’s largest since that restructuring. (siliconangle.com) (npr.org) The company is making the cuts while trying to catch up with OpenAI, Google and Anthropic in generative AI. Meta has said its spending will go toward data centers, chips and the computing power needed to train and run larger models. (cnbc.com) (datacenterdynamics.com) Meta’s message to employees was that the reductions are not spread evenly across every team. The company described them as tradeoffs meant to free up money and headcount for priority areas tied to AI. (npr.org) (nbcnews.com) The result is a familiar Meta pattern: fewer people and fewer open jobs in slower-growth units, and a much bigger bill for the computing systems behind its next AI push. (cnbc.com) (datacenterdynamics.com)