Meta is planning to lay off approximately 8,000 employees and eliminate another 6,000 open roles as it seeks to reduce costs amid its massive bet on artificial intelligence.
With approximately 78,000 employees at the end of 2025, the cuts will affect about 10% of the company’s existing workforce.
In an internal memo, a Meta executive did not explicitly mention AI when discussing the cuts but said they were needed to compensate for spending elsewhere. Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, planned to double its AI spending in 2026 to about $135 billion from $72 billion last year.
“We’re doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we’re making,” Janelle Gale, Meta’s chief people officer, said in the memo to employees. “This is not an easy tradeoff and it will mean letting go of people who have made meaningful contributions to Meta during their time here.”
The internal memo was first reported by Bloomberg News. A representative for the company confirmed to NBC News that the report was accurate. Reuters first reported on Meta’s planned workforce reductions last week and said more were planned for later this year.
Layoffs directly attributable to AI, where human roles are explicitly replaced with some form of nonhuman labor, remain relatively rare.
Instead, many companies are dramatically scaling back hiring for roles that existing employees might be able to perform with the help of AI. At the same time, analysts say large tech companies like Meta, as well as Microsoft and Amazon, have been forced to reduce overall head count to make up for the billions they have poured into building out AI infrastructure, like data centers.
Earlier Wednesday, multiple outlets reported that Microsoft planned to offer voluntary buyouts to more than 8,000 employees — mostly older workers — from its 125,000 U.S. workforce.
Amazon announced cuts affecting 16,000 roles earlier this year.
Investors are becoming more circumspect about whether Meta’s and Microsoft’s AI bets will pay off. Microsoft shares are down about 20% from all-time highs reached last August, while Meta’s have declined more than 10% over the same period. That’s even as the broader, tech-focused Nasdaq composite index has mostly returned to record levels. Amazon has been more immune to the drawdowns: Its stock hit a new all-time high this week.
