Meta is shifting more than 7,000 employees into AI-focused roles as it accelerates an overhaul to make artificial intelligence central to its products and infrastructure. The company notified staff that engineers “selected” for reassignment will move to two small teams—one building AI cloud infrastructure and another developing an internal AI agent, code-named Hatch—echoing a recent reshuffle that moved at least 1,000 engineers into a data-labeling unit known as Applied AI after managers told workers “transfers aren’t optional.” Some managers are losing direct reports and being converted into individual contributors as Meta flattens layers to speed AI development.
The shake-up comes amid internal backlash and anxiety. Meta has begun testing a monitoring tool, the Model Capability Initiative, that records mouse movements, keystrokes and other interactions to train AI systems, prompting a petition signed by more than 500 employees and a union drive in the U.K. The changes arrive as Meta signals heavy investment—up to $135 billion this year—to build AI infrastructure and models, including the recently unveiled Muse Spark, while it races to catch OpenAI, Google and Anthropic. Meta is also expected to cut roughly 10% of its workforce despite reporting record first-quarter results, underscoring a strategic pivot that is straining morale at the social-media giant.
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