Earlier this year, Meta initiated a strategy aimed at transforming the company into an "AI native" organization, potentially leading to reductions of up to 60 percent in some teams, according to a report by Reuters based on insights from two individuals closely acquainted with Meta's internal operations.
The report emphasizes the difficulties companies encounter when determining how to best leverage AI technology and when it may be more advantageous than human labor for specific tasks.
Meta confirmed to Reuters the existence of a plan, codenamed Project OT (for organizational transformation), which considered scenarios involving substantial team reductions and proposed two separate rounds of layoffs. However, the company did not disclose the specific teams impacted by Project OT.
In its statement, Meta explained, “As part of our company restructuring earlier this year, we asked some teams to conduct a scenario planning exercise looking at the potential impact of redeployments, open role closures and cuts. This ultimately resulted in moving thousands of employees to prioritize work on several newly established teams, as publicly reported. Ultimately, we didn’t move forward with every scenario from the exercise—and it was never assumed we would.”
The report also revealed that CEO Mark Zuckerberg was instrumental in launching Project OT, instructing executives to implement changes in management structure earlier in the year. The first phase of layoffs associated with the project took place in May, while plans for a second phase were ultimately abandoned.
In preparing the report, Reuters examined numerous internal documents, communications, and recordings, while also interviewing over 20 individuals familiar with the inner workings of Meta regarding these now-defunct initiatives.
The initiative, kicked off in January, sought to explore the possibility of employing AI to handle "much of the daily work conducted by thousands of human employees," with small teams tasked with overseeing the AI operations, as stated in an internal planning document reviewed by Reuters and corroborated by three insiders familiar with the project.



