Meta employees erupt over AI rules and restructuring

Meta employees – Meta’s push to reorganize around artificial intelligence has sparked open resistance inside the company, including an employee interrupting a livestream with an expletive-filled rant. The turmoil follows months of AI-focused restructuring, layoffs of about 10%

For thousands of Meta employees. the moment landed mid-livestream: a worker interrupted the company presentation with an expletive-filled rant aimed at Meta’s AI leadership. It wasn’t the kind of outburst people expect to hear from behind an office door—especially not in front of colleagues who had tuned in to watch the company’s message play out.

The incident, described in a report from WIRED, has since become a window into a far wider frustration inside Meta. Over the past several months. Meta has reorganized large parts of its workforce around artificial intelligence. forming new teams to help improve and evaluate AI models. At the same time. the company has invested heavily in its AI ambitions while restructuring existing divisions and reducing headcount—two changes that workers say have collided in a way morale can’t absorb.

One of the biggest flashpoints is a unit called Applied AI, reportedly made up of around 6,500 engineers and product managers. Employees interviewed by WIRED say the work has felt repetitive and disconnected from the jobs they were originally hired to do. Some reportedly spend their time building coding challenges and test cases used to train and evaluate AI systems. rather than developing products directly used by customers.

That dissatisfaction isn’t confined to one team. The report ties Meta’s AI-focused restructuring to layoffs affecting roughly 10% of the workforce—around 8,000 employees. Workers across multiple divisions describe morale as being at historic lows as teams adapt to new priorities and take on additional workloads.

Then came another fight over control and privacy: a program to collect employee activity data for AI training purposes. More than 1,600 employees reportedly signed a petition opposing a system designed to monitor clicks and keystrokes on company devices. After the backlash. Meta adjusted the initiative by allowing workers to pause data collection temporarily and request exemptions in certain cases.

Even senior executives have acknowledged how brutal the transition has felt inside the company. During an internal meeting. Meta Chief Product Officer Chris Cox reportedly described the environment as “difficult” and “brutal. ” comparing Meta’s situation to running a marathon during a hailstorm. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also admitted in an internal memo that the company had made mistakes during the restructuring process and promised greater stability moving forward.

The internal record Meta is now living through fits a familiar tension across the tech industry: executives can frame AI as the route to future products, while employees experience it as role changes, heavier expectations, and work that can feel unrecognizable.

Meta has insisted its AI investments are necessary to build future products, including smarter social media experiences, AI assistants, and next-generation wearable devices. Zuckerberg has repeatedly described AI as central to the company’s long-term strategy.

In practice, the gap between strategy and daily work is what’s flaring. Meta’s challenge isn’t just improving AI models. It’s convincing employees—some of whom are watching layoffs. new teams. and new monitoring policies arrive on top of one another—that the shift is one they’re meant to steer. not endure.

Meta artificial intelligence AI restructuring Applied AI layoffs employee petition employee monitoring clicks and keystrokes Chris Cox Mark Zuckerberg WIRED