Meta cuts 8,000 staff amid AI push Social media giant culls employees despite record revenue. By Tom Williams on May 21 2026 01:20 PM Print article Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly told staff 'AI is the most consequential technology of our lifetimes'. Image: Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook Meta has reportedly notified around 8,000 staff – almost 10 per cent of its global workforce – they are being made redundant, as the company hits a revenue record and invests billions more dollars into artificial intelligence. The social media giant which owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads reportedly informed affected employees on Wednesday, but did not respond by deadline when asked by Information Age whether any Australian roles were cut. Many employees in the United States were allegedly told to work from home this week as announcements were made about job cuts – believed to be the largest since Meta removed around 10,000 roles in 2023. The new layoffs come after the company reported in April that it had seen record revenue of $US56.31 billion ($78.78 billion) in the first quarter of 2026, with a jump in profit to $US26.8 billion ($37.49 billion). Zuckerberg wants to ‘lead the way’ on AI Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly thanked exiting employees for their work and wrote in an email that he was optimistic about Meta’s push into AI. “Success isn’t a given. AI is the most consequential technology of our lifetimes,” he wrote, according to The New York Times. “The companies that lead the way will define the next generation.” Meta staff were reportedly told of impending job losses in an internal memo published in April, in which the company allegedly said it would also not fill thousands of other current job openings. Meta has only two Australian job openings advertised on its website at the time of writing. The job cuts come as the company increases its investments in AI, including in tools to make its work more efficient, in highly paid AI researchers, and in infrastructure for AI training and inference. Meta announced record quarterly revenue in April for the first three months of 2026. Image: Shutterstock Meta moves more staff into AI work Meta is also reportedly shifting more of its existing workers onto AI-related projects. The company’s chief people officer Janelle Gale reportedly told employees earlier this week that the company planned to move around 7,000 workers into more AI-focused work. Gale said some managerial roles would also be cut, Reuters reported. "As org leaders worked on the changes, many of them incorporated AI native design principles ⁠into their new org structures,” she reportedly wrote. “We're now at the stage where many orgs can operate with a flatter structure with smaller teams of pods/cohorts that can move faster and with more ownership." Much of the focus of Meta’s AI projects is reportedly on the development of AI agents that can autonomously carry out multistep tasks for staff. In recent weeks more than 1,000 Meta workers reportedly signed a petition against the installation of mouse-tracking software on their work devices, which the company is allegedly using to train its AI models on how humans interact with computers. Meta also laid off staff in its Reality Labs division earlier this year, as it reduced its investments in a virtual reality platform it had dubbed the Metaverse, which did not gain mainstream appeal. The company had almost 79,000 employees at the end of 2025, according to a regulatory filing. Meta’s job cuts come after other technology firms such as Amazon, HP, Atlassian, Afterpay, WiseTech, Pinterest, and Telstra also recently cut jobs while accelerating investments in AI technology. Tom Williams Tom Williams is a senior journalist at Information Age with key interests in consumer technology, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, cybersecurity, and telecommunications. He was previously a digital journalist at ABC News, where he covered technology and breaking news. You can follow Tom on Bluesky, LinkedIn, or Threads, contact him at [email protected], and send tip-offs via secure email to [email protected]. Tags: meta mark zuckerberg ai artificial intelligence