Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that the company made mistakes in its rapid shift toward an AI-centered workforce, as the Facebook parent tries to reorganize its operations around the technology while avoiding more company-wide layoffs this year.
Zuckerberg made the comments in an internal memo seen by Reuters, saying Meta was trying to bring more stability to employees after a major restructuring in May that cut 10% of its global workforce and moved 8,000 staff into new AI-related initiatives.
Meta seeks stability after AI restructuring strain
“Given the complexity of these changes, we’ve made mistakes and will almost certainly make more,” Zuckerberg said, adding that he was also “focused on providing as much stability as possible” as the company pushes deeper into AI.
The comments underscore the disruption caused by Meta’s AI strategy, which has reshaped teams, reassigned workers and raised concerns about management capacity.
“I don’t want to overpromise because the world is changing in ways that are out of our control,” he said, while reiterating that Meta does not expect more company-wide layoffs this year.
Reassigned workers could get new roles
Zuckerberg said Meta would try to find new roles for employees reassigned to train AI models after the company’s May restructuring moved thousands of workers into AI workflow initiatives.
“By creating important new roles for people, this also allowed us to shrink the size of teams knowing that if we make mistakes in some places, then we could transfer some people back,” Zuckerberg said.
Meta weighs changes after manager concerns
Zuckerberg said Meta had taken note of concerns about wider manager responsibilities and plans to scale back the practice.
The company’s new Applied AI Engineering unit reportedly had a flat structure with as many as 50 individual contributors for each manager, reflecting the broader push to slim down teams while shifting more work toward AI-driven systems.
How Meta got here
Meta’s AI workforce shift came as companies across the tech sector and other AI-exposed industries moved to cut costs and redesign work around automation.
The company has been pouring money into AI infrastructure, models and internal tools, while pushing employees to use the technology to work faster and with fewer layers of management.
By May, that strategy had turned into a broader workforce reset, with Meta cutting jobs, reducing management layers and transferring thousands of employees into AI-related roles.
Zuckerberg’s latest memo suggests the company is now trying to steady employees after that forced transition.
