Meta eyes major layoffs as AI spending drive prompts restructuring

Meta has reportedly planned a major workforce reduction that could affect 20% or more of its roughly 79,000 employees. This significant move would result in over 15,000 job losses- the largest in the company’s history. The company seeks to offset costly artificial intelligence infrastructure bets and prepare for greater efficiency enabled by AI-assisted workers.

While top executives have instructed senior leaders to begin “paring back” teams, as Meta spokesperson Andy Stone officially categorized the reports as speculative reporting about theoretical approaches. Despite the looming cuts, Meta continues to spend heavily on AI, including the recent $ 2 billion acquisition of Chinese startup Manus and eye-watering pay packages to recruit top researchers.

Meta’s AI setbacks explained: New model faces performance and delays

• The Avocado Model

Meta’s latest foundational AI model, condemned Avocado, has reportedly underperformed in internal tests for reasoning and coding. The company has officially pushed back the release of "Avocado" from this month to at least May. Currently, the model’s performance falls between Google’s AI Gemini 2.5 and Gemini 3, leading the Meta to delay the launch ahead by at least two months to further refine its capabilities.

• Licensing Rival tech

Due to these internal performance gaps, Meta’s leadership has reportedly discussed the possibility of licensing Google’s Gemini technology to power Meta’s products in the interim. These struggles follow the cancellation of the Behemoth model last year after it provided misleading benchmark results.

Zuckerberg pushed Generative AI as Meta’s top priority

CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been pushing Meta to compete more forcefully in generative AI over the past year. The company has offered massive pay packages- some worth hundreds of millions of dollars over four years- to court prominent AI researchers for a new superintelligence team. Meta’s plans reflect a border pattern among major US companies, particularly in tech this year. In line with the executive's viewpoint, recent improvements in the AI systems are cited as one reason for the changes.

Amazon confirmed major layoffs in January

In January, Amazon confirmed it would cut some 16,000 jobs, amounting to nearly 10% of its workforce. Last month, the fintech company Block reduced its staff by nearly half, with CEO Jack Dorsey explicitly pointing to AI tools and their growing capability to help companies operate with smaller teams.

The efficiency shift: Why big tech is trading staff for AI

The superintelligence team has been working to reassert the company’s standing by citing the compounding capabilities of AI tools as a key reason to maintain smaller and more specialized human teams.