Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is planning to lay off about 600 employees from its artificial intelligence division.
This decision was communicated to Meta staff in an internal memo on Wednesday.
In the memo, Alexandr Wang, Meta’s new chief AI officer, said the planned job cuts were aimed at reducing the size of the organisation’s AI team.
“By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision, and each person will be more load-bearing and have more scope and impact,” Mr Wang said.
The 600 job cuts will affect staff in Meta’s Superintelligence Labs, the umbrella unit overseeing the company’s AI operations.
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, had in July announced the creation of Meta’s Superintelligence AI Lab as part of efforts to develop “personal superintelligence” in the social media space.
By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision, and each person will be more load-bearing and have more scope and impact.
