Meta AI: Downsizing Considered Amid Major Restructuring

In a move sending ripples of uncertainty through Silicon Valley, sources say Meta is considering downsizing its sprawling artificial intelligence division, just months after a high-profile, multi-billion-dollar hiring spree aimed at dominating the AI landscape.

The potential cuts are part of a massive new restructuring of the company’s AI efforts. According to internal announcements and sources familiar with the matter, the recently formed "Meta Superintelligence Labs" (MSL) is being split into four distinct groups. This reorganization comes amid reports of internal friction and a strategic rethink, even as CEO Mark Zuckerberg has publicly committed to spending "hundreds of billions" to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI).

While Meta has not officially confirmed any layoffs, insiders, as reported by The New York Times, suggest that with the AI division having swelled to thousands of employees, a reduction in force is being actively discussed. The talks are said to be fluid, but the mere consideration of downsizing represents a dramatic pivot from the company's recent strategy of poaching top AI talent from rivals like Google and OpenAI with unprecedented, nine-figure compensation packages.

The restructuring, announced internally this week, is being framed as an effort to bring focus and accelerate progress. Under the new chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, the MSL will now be organized into four pillars:

A research group, which includes the long-standing Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) lab.

A product group, tasked with integrating AI into Meta's consumer apps.

An infrastructure team, focused on building the massive data centers and hardware needed for AI development.

A "superintelligence" group, dedicated to the ambitious long-term goal of creating AI that surpasses human intellect.

This shake-up is the latest in a series of overhauls within Meta's AI teams this year, reflecting the immense pressure and internal turmoil of the high-stakes AI race. The move also dissolves the "AGI Foundations" team, reassigning its leaders to other strategic roles.

The news has sparked speculation across the tech industry about whether the AI hype bubble is beginning to lose air. Coupled with a recent MIT study finding that 95% of enterprise AI pilots fail to boost revenue, Meta’s potential course correction is seen by some as a sign that the staggering costs of AI development are meeting the hard realities of monetization.

Further complicating the narrative, sources claim Meta is now exploring the use of third-party and open-source AI models to power its products—a significant departure from its previous in-house-only approach.

While no final decisions on the scale of any downsizing have been made, the combination of a major reorganization, executive departures, and the possibility of job cuts has created a sense of instability within a division that, until now, was seen as Meta's most crucial growth engine. For a company that bet its name on the Metaverse and is now betting its future on AI, the coming months will be critical in determining whether this strategic whiplash is a sign of agile leadership or deepening chaos.