Meta’s upcoming 10 percent layoffs are just the beginning. Redundant workers could become the new normal as Mark Zuckerberg shifts spending on AI instead of human workers. “We’re seeing a lot of examples where one or two people are building something in a week that would have taken dozens of people months before,” Zuckerberg told analysts during Meta’s first-quarter earnings call yesterday (April 29). As the company moves toward Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI, Meta will be “guiding our teams to be smaller than they need to be,” he added.
Earlier this month, Meta warned workers of layoffs in May affecting about 10 percent of its 78,000 workforce. Chief Financial Officer Susan Li talked about reducing the earnings call, saying the layoffs “will allow us to move faster while helping to offset the major investments we’re making.”
Like most of Big Tech, Meta is ramping up the use of AI. The company raised its 2026 cost estimate to between $125 billion and $145 billion, from a previous range of $115 billion to $135 billion. The increase comes as Meta beat Wall Street expectations in the first quarter, with revenue up 33 percent year over year to $56.3 billion and revenue jumping 61 percent to $26.7 billion. Still, shares fell nearly 9 percent today (April 30) after daily active population growth (DAP) fell short of analyst forecasts. Meta had 3.56 billion daily active users by the end of 2025, up 4 percent from the previous year.
Meta’s AI push includes building the Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), with researchers employed with outrageous compensation packages. The increase in wages contributed to a 35 percent year-over-year increase in expenses for the quarter to $33.4 billion. “The increase in employee compensation was driven by the technology hires we added over the past year, especially AI talent,” said Li.
Even as Meta downsizes, executives say the company still isn’t sure what its future workforce should look like. “We don’t really know what the right size will be in the future,” said Li. “We will continue to evaluate how we are structured to ensure we are best prepared to deliver on our priorities in the coming years.”
AI is also reshaping Zuckerberg’s role. The CEO is reportedly creating an AI-powered avatar of himself to communicate with employees in his absence, as well as a “CEO agent” to handle routine tasks.
Meta’s cuts reflect a broader shift across the technology spectrum. In February, Block CEO Jack Dorsey cut nearly 40 percent of his workforce—about 4,000 employees—citing the first AI strategy and predicting similar moves across the industry by the end of 2026. Snap, led by Evan Spiegel, also laid off about 1,000 workers last month in anticipation of AI efficiencies.
Microsoft is following suit as it prepares to spend an estimated $190 billion on AI-related spending this year. Earlier this month, the company launched its first voluntary buyout program for US employees with at least 70 years of service, about 7 percent of its 125,000 employees, or about 8,000 employees. The program is expected to add about $900 million in one-time costs this quarter, CFO Amy Hood said on Microsoft’s earnings call yesterday. He indicated that more cuts would be made.
“We continue to change the way we operate to increase our speed and capacity,” Hood told analysts. “Therefore, we expect that the census will decrease every year.”
Georgia Fearn contributed reporting.
