Meta is reportedly considering its largest round of layoffs to date as the company expands its artificial intelligence ambitions and restructures its workforce. The Times of India cited a Reuters report stating that the cuts could affect 20 per cent or more of Meta's nearly 79,000 employees, potentially impacting over 15,800 jobs.
If implemented, the move would surpass previous layoffs carried out during the company's "year of efficiency" restructuring in 2022 and 2023.
Layoffs linked to AI spending and operational changes
Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that Meta executives have already begun discussing potential workforce reductions with senior leadership. Managers have reportedly been asked to examine how teams could operate with fewer employees.
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While no final timeline has been confirmed, one person familiar with the company's thinking told Business Insider that layoffs could arrive within a month.
The reported restructuring is being driven largely by Meta's growing investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure and the company's push towards leaner operations supported by AI tools.
Massive investments in AI infrastructure
Meta has committed $600 billion to build data centres by 2028 as it scales up its AI capabilities. The company's capital expenditure for 2026 could reach $135 billion, nearly double the $72 billion spent the previous year.
The company is also offering substantial compensation packages to attract leading AI researchers for its superintelligence initiatives. Some reported pay deals for top talent are said to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars over four years.
Meta has also been expanding through acquisitions and investments. The company recently acquired Moltbook, a social networking platform designed for AI agents. It is also reportedly spending at least $2 billion to acquire Chinese AI startup Manus and invested $14.3 billion in Scale AI last year, bringing founder Alexandr Wang on board as chief AI officer.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has previously indicated that artificial intelligence is already changing how work is carried out inside the company.
In January, he said he was seeing "projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person".
Meta has also reorganised parts of its engineering structure, with new teams reportedly operating with manager-to-employee ratios of up to 1:50.
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Potentially the largest layoffs in Meta's history
If the proposed 20 per cent reduction happens, it would exceed Meta's earlier job cuts. In November 2022, the company laid off about 11,000 employees, roughly 13 per cent of its workforce. Around four months later, it announced another 10,000 layoffs, followed by 1,500 job cuts in Reality Labs earlier this year.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone did not confirm the layoffs, describing the reports as "speculative reporting about theoretical approaches".
The potential workforce cuts come at a challenging time for Meta's AI projects. The company's new foundational model, codenamed Avocado, has reportedly underperformed in internal testing for reasoning, coding and writing tasks compared with competing models such as Google's Gemini 3.0.
The model's launch has now been delayed until at least May. Earlier, Meta had also scrapped the largest version of its Llama 4 model, known as Behemoth, after criticism over benchmark results.
With billions invested in AI infrastructure and development, Meta's next moves are being closely watched across the technology industry.
