Meta to lay off 10% of workforce in AI push

April 23 (UPI) -- Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, plans to lay off 10% of its workforce worldwide -- about 8,000 people -- and focus on artificial intelligence, an employee memo said Thursday.

The first round of layoffs is expected to start May 20, with more coming later in the year. The memo also said Meta will not hire people for 6,000 open roles, CNBC reported.

The company had earlier chopped about 1,500 workers this year in its Reality Labs division, USA Today reported. It said at the time that it was moving from its "metaverse" business model to a focus on Meta Superintelligence Labs. There were more layoffs in March, when the company got rid of hundreds of workers in Facebook and other units and shifted other roles, including moderation, to AI.

This is part of a big and growing trend in tech companies worldwide. Microsoft said Thursday that it will offer voluntary buyouts to some employees, CNBC reported, and Amazon has laid off about 30,000 employees in many divisions in favor of AI tools.

USA Today said Meta has spent hundreds of billions ofdollars on AI; the company introduced its major AI model, "Muse Spark," earlier this month. Further, Meta told workers earlier this week that a new employee tracking tool will capture data from their work computers and that the data is needed to train AI agents.

"We are at an exciting point for our company, where we have continued runway to improve our core services today as well as the opportunity to build new AI-powered experiences and services that will transform how people engage with our products in the future," Meta said in its third-quarter report for 2025.

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This story was originally published April 23, 2026 at 3:46 PM.