Meta says it will cut 8,000 jobs as AI spending grows

meta will cut roughly 8,000 jobs next month — 10% of its workforce — and won't fill thousands more open roles. the company told employees in a memo on thursday. a key reason: meta plans to spend $135bn on ai this year, roughly equal to its total ai spending over the previous three years combined. mark zuckerberg said in january he'd seen how much more productive ai-heavy workers had become — one person could now do what used to require a large team. "i think 2026 is going to be the year that ai starts to dramatically change the way that we work," he said. the company also told employees this week it would start logging their work computer interactions to train ai models. one employee called it "dystopian" given the layoffs. this is meta's largest job cut since 2023. since 2022, it has shed tens of thousands of workers, though hiring had resumed and headcount had returned near pre-layoff levels.