Metaโs AI plan has hit a major roadblock. Meta explored cutting some teams by up to 60 per cent and using AI agents to do more work. But the plan was scaled back after the tools failed to bring the gains that Mark Zuckerberg expected.
Meta wanted fewer workers and more AI
As reported by India Today, Mark Zuckerbergโs plan was built around a simple idea. Meta wanted smaller teams, fewer layers of managers and more AI doing daily work. The project was called Project OT, short for Organization Transformation. Some Meta teams were considered for cuts of up to 60 per cent. The plan would have split workers into small โpodsโ and asked them to use AI agents for more tasks. The aim was to make the company faster and cheaper.
The plan was formed after a January leadership retreat at Zuckerbergโs Hawaii compound. It included two planned waves of cuts. Meta carried out the first wave in May, but the second wave was later dropped. The first cuts were still large. Around 10 per cent of staff, or about 8,000 people, lost their jobs in May. Meta also moved thousands of workers into new teams. The 60 per cent figure did not apply to Metaโs whole workforce. It referred to some teams under the plans.
AI tools failed to deliver for Mark Zuckerberg as hoped
The bigger problem came from the AI itself. Meta wanted AI agents to take routine work and help smaller teams do more. But results did not show the progress expected. Meta employees faced issues with the new AI tools, including reliability and security problems. The tools also failed to give the expected boost in productivity. Mark Zuckerberg later said AI agent technology was not moving as fast as he had hoped.
Employee reaction made things harder. Workers were unhappy with plans to track keystrokes, mouse movements and screens to help train AI systems. More than 1,000 employees signed a petition against the tracking plan. Falling morale and worker anger added to the trouble. The company asked staff to embrace AI while also exploring whether it could replace parts of their jobs. That made the restructuring harder to sell.
Meta is still betting big on AI
Calling off the wider cuts does not mean Meta is stepping away from AI. The company is still putting huge sums into AI infrastructure, chips and talent. Meta expects to spend between $130B and $145B on capital projects in 2026. The report also said Metaโs costs and expenses rose 55 per cent year on year in the second quarter, reaching $42.03B. The change is about speed, not direction.
They now have to find a way to use the technology without moving faster than the tools can handle. For workers, the latest move offers some relief, at least for now. For investors and businesses, it shows that big AI plans can face limits inside a major technology firm. Meta has not given up on its AI push. The focus has shifted from cutting large numbers of workers to using AI as a tool for smaller and more productive teams.
Authorโs Opinion
Metaโs decision shows that AI is powerful, but it is not magic. Cutting jobs may look simple on paper, yet real work has many moving parts. A slower, more careful approach may be wiser.
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