"AI Curse" Continues to Claim Victims as Meta Announces Major Layoffs
The wave of workforce reductions has once again struck global technology giants. This time, Meta is preparing for major layoffs as part of its increasingly aggressive AI-based business transformation.
According to three sources familiar with the plans, as reported by Reuters on Saturday (18/4/2026), the parent company of Facebook and Instagram will begin the first round of job cuts on 20 May. In this initial phase, around 10% of the total global workforce, or nearly 8,000 employees, will be affected.
This will not be the last round. The same sources indicate that the company is also preparing follow-up waves of layoffs in the second half of the year. However, details such as the timing and number of employees impacted remain unconfirmed.
Executives are reportedly still open to adjustments to the plan, depending on future AI technology developments.
Previously, Reuters reported that the company could cut up to 20% or more of its total global workforce.
Meta itself declined to comment on the timing or scale of the reductions.
Behind this drastic step, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pouring massive investments, reaching hundreds of billions of dollars, to shift the company’s direction towards AI technology. This effort reflects a wider trend among major US companies, particularly in the technology sector, racing to improve efficiency through automation.
Similar steps have been seen at other companies. For instance, Amazon has cut around 30,000 corporate employees in recent months, equivalent to nearly 10% of its office workers.
Meanwhile, fintech company Block slashed nearly half of its total workforce in February.
In both cases, management openly linked the layoffs to efficiency gains from AI utilisation.
The global tech layoffs tracker site, Layoffs.fyi, records that as of now, 73,212 workers have lost their jobs throughout this year. In comparison, the figure for 2024 reached 153,000 people.
For Meta, this round of cuts marks the largest since the major restructuring at the end of 2022 to early 2023, which they called the “year of efficiency”. At that time, the company eliminated around 21,000 jobs amid stock performance pressures and corrections to the unsustainable growth surge from the pandemic era.
Meta’s current financial position is relatively stronger. Last year, the company recorded revenue exceeding $200 billion and profits of $60 billion, although AI spending is substantial.
Since the beginning of this year, Meta’s shares have risen 3.68%, though still below the peak reached last summer.
As of 31 December, the Menlo Park, California-based company employed nearly 79,000 people, according to its latest report.
In line with the new strategy, Meta executives envision a leaner organisational structure, with fewer management layers and increased productivity through AI-supported workers.
In recent weeks, Meta has also reorganised teams in the Reality Labs division and transferred some engineers to a new unit called “Applied AI”. This unit is tasked with accelerating the development of AI agents capable of writing code and performing complex tasks autonomously.
Additionally, some employees will be redirected to a new unit named Meta Small Business, formed last month as part of the restructuring.