Meta Lays Off Hundreds After Zuckerberg Says One Person With AI Can Replace Entire Teams

Meta laid off hundreds of employees on Wednesday, cutting across at least five divisions, including Facebook, recruiting, sales, global operations, and Reality Labs, the company’s virtual reality unit. A source familiar with the matter confirmed the scope of the cuts to NBC News. While most affected workers were notified on Wednesday, others may learn of their status in the coming weeks, depending on location and circumstances.

The timing follows a statement CEO Mark Zuckerberg made in January, when he told followers on Facebook that 2026 would be the year AI begins to reshape how work gets done at Meta. “We’re starting to see projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person,” he wrote in the post, which accompanied the company’s quarterly earnings release.

Meta employed nearly 79,000 people as of December 2025, according to NBC News. The latest round of layoffs is smaller than the cuts made in January, when 331 workers in the Puget Sound area alone were let go. That earlier reduction targeted roughly 10% of the 15,000-person Reality Labs workforce. A Meta spokesperson said the company is working to find other roles for impacted employees.

Zuckerberg Said in January That AI Would Change the Way Work Gets Done

In his January Facebook post, Zuckerberg outlined a shift in how Meta plans to operate going forward. The company said it is investing in AI-native tools so individual contributors can take on more, while also flattening team structures. “Our north star is building the best place for individuals to make a massive impact,” he wrote.

Employee compensation was the second-largest contributor to Meta’s total expense growth in its fourth quarter and full year 2025 results, the company noted, citing new 2026 hires focused on AI priorities. At the same time, Meta plans to spend between $115 billion and $135 billion this year on data centers and infrastructure to support its AI buildout, according to the Seattle Times, a significant jump in capital expenditure.

Zuckerberg also pointed to new content formats on the horizon. In the same post, he wrote that advances in AI would soon make possible “more immersive and interactive” media beyond text, photos, and video. In the same post, he pointed to each shift in Meta’s content history as following a technological unlock: first, cameras on phones, then faster mobile networks, and now AI.

Reality Labs Cuts Come as Meta Pulls Back From Its Metaverse Push

The layoffs inside Reality Labs arrive as Meta formally pulls back from its metaverse ambitions. The company announced it would shut down the Horizon Worlds app for VR headsets in June, though it later revised that plan slightly, saying existing VR apps would still be supported. No new content will be developed for the platform, according to the Seattle Times.

Reality Labs has lost $76.9 billion since Meta rebranded from Facebook in 2021, according to regulatory filings cited by the Seattle Times. Over that same period, Meta’s family of apps, which includes Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp, brought in more than $352 billion. The contrast between the two divisions has grown harder to ignore as Meta redirects spending toward AI and away from virtual and augmented reality development.

The Seattle area felt the shift acutely. Meta once had more than 8,000 employees across Redmond, Bellevue, and several Seattle neighborhoods, and Paresh Rajwat, Meta’s former Pacific Northwest lead, told the Seattle Times in 2022 that the road to the metaverse “passes through Seattle.” Since then, Meta backed out of two Bellevue office buildings, let expansion rights on five development sites lapse, and vacated an early South Lake Union office now occupied by Apple.

Meta’s Restructuring Reflects a Broader Industry Reckoning Over AI and Workforce Size

The layoffs are not isolated to one team or project. NBC News reported that the reductions across the affected divisions are unrelated to one another. Some employees are being offered new roles inside the company, and others may have the option to relocate depending on their circumstances, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Meta’s restructuring comes as the broader tech industry grapples with how AI tools are changing the math on team size and hiring. Zuckerberg stated in January that Meta intends to elevate individual contributors and flatten teams, and the company’s spending priorities reflect that shift. The company’s spending priorities reflect that shift, with AI infrastructure now absorbing the bulk of its capital investment for 2026.

Meta has not disclosed how many total employees were affected in Wednesday’s cuts or whether Seattle-area workers were among them. However, the company confirmed the reductions are global. The divisions hit on Wednesday span the core of how Meta operates, from hiring to revenue to its flagship social platform. The company said it will continue restructuring teams to align with its current priorities.