Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is dismissing 600 employees from its AI division, according to U.S. reports. The company confirmed on Wednesday that it is eliminating around 600 artificial intelligence positions while continuing to hire for its superintelligence lab.
Axios first revealed the layoffs, which will impact Meta’s Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) team, product-focused AI teams, and AI infrastructure groups. The newer TBD Lab will remain unaffected.
Employees Encouraged to Reapply Internally
Chief AI officer Alexandr Wang, in a memo cited by Axios, urged affected staff to apply for other roles at Meta. The company expects most of them to secure new positions within its departments. Wang explained that smaller teams will enable faster decision-making and increase individual responsibility, scope, and influence.
Meta Expands AI Ambitions Despite Setbacks
Meta continues to recruit for its TBD Lab, which develops advanced large language models (LLMs). These models power tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Meta’s own Llama.
Unlike its competitors, Meta offers Llama as a semi-open source system, allowing users to access and modify certain components. The company claims over one billion people use its AI tools each month, yet many observers still view Meta as trailing behind OpenAI and Google in promoting consumer adoption of large language models.
