Meta AI – Meta’s chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth told employees the company did “an atrocious” job rolling out its new AI division, promising changes to improve communication, career growth, and managerial structure after Applied AI workers described the work a
For Applied AI employees at Meta. the problem wasn’t just the work—it was the feeling that the company wasn’t listening. On Monday. Andrew Bosworth. Meta’s chief technology officer. stepped into that tension and admitted Meta’s rollout of its new artificial intelligence division was handled “atrociously. ” in an internal post seen by WIRED.
Bosworth’s message came after reporting revealed widespread dissatisfaction inside the Applied AI engineering unit. Meta created that division in March. bringing together about 6. 500 engineers and product managers to pursue projects aimed at improving the company’s generative AI models. But many of the workers’ accounts painted a different picture of the day-to-day.
One description captured the mood sharply: some employees compared the experience to a “gulag,” saying the tasks felt menial. Bosworth said employee feedback had shaped the changes he was announcing, and he directly named what had gone wrong.
“We’ve undermined the trust you have that your specific expertise and contribution will be valued. that you will grow and advance your career. and that this will be a place where you can actually have an impact. ” Bosworth wrote. He also pointed to management upheaval. saying Meta “shook up the management structure that was providing you stability. ” while rapid changes in strategy—including the boom/bust cycle of hiring—left entire teams in the lurch.
Meta declined to comment for this story.
Bosworth’s memo also landed inside a wider morale downturn at Meta that employees have linked to mass layoffs, worker surveillance, and other concerns. In recent days, several executives—including CEO Mark Zuckerberg—posted internal messages acknowledging employees’ feelings and promising changes.
In Bosworth’s account, the fix begins with how employees are guided once they’re inside the organization. He said employees would receive more personalized attention going forward. Meta plans to cap managers at about 20 direct reports each. and he said the company would try to limit how often employees are switched to new managers during restructurings. Managers, Bosworth wrote, would focus primarily on managing and secondarily on independent work. Employees would also have access to “AI coaching” tools if they choose to use them.
He also spoke from a place of self-blame. Bosworth. long seen as a Zuckerberg loyalist. said he and other executives lost sight of how the change looked from employees’ perspective while rushing to focus on bigger strategy issues—like improving Meta’s ability to compete in the market for AI coding tools. “We obviously did an atrocious job explaining the vision. giving people a clear picture of how we would support them and their careers in the shift. and painting a picture of how it would change over time. ” he wrote.
Yet the message didn’t fully retract the rationale for the reorg. Bosworth suggested that drafting people onto the AI team in the name of speed was the correct call. and he reminded employees that some projects won’t immediately feel meaningful. “There are going to be times where the work requires sacrifice. ” he wrote. and employees might need to work on efforts they “don’t find as personally fulfilling for a while.”.
That promise of flexibility had already started to appear in another internal communication. In a separate post from late last Friday seen by WIRED. Maher Saba. a vice president leading the Applied AI team. told employees who were forced to join that they would be allowed to take other roles within Meta if they could secure them. Saba said the decision to draft people was necessary because Meta has resources other AI labs don’t—“our scale and our people’s expertise.” He added that “moving forward. we are returning to business as usual and giving people the agency to apply to roles that interest them.”.
Put together, the messages show how quickly the company’s AI push collided with employee expectations—and how hard it is for leaders to repair trust after a strategy shift, managerial changes, and a fast hiring cycle leave teams feeling untethered.
Meta Andrew Bosworth AI reorganization Applied AI generative AI employee morale internal memo AI coaching tools management structure