Meta announced that it will be laying off around 600 employees in its artificial intelligence unit as the company looks to reduce layers and operate more nimbly, according to CNBC.
The layoffs were announced in a memo from Alexandr Wang, Meta's chief AI officer, who was hired as part of the company’s US$14.3 billion investment in Scale AI in June.
Workers across Meta’s AI infrastructure units, the Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research unit (FAIR) and other product-related positions will be impacted.
“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,” wrote Alexandr Wang, Meta’s chief AI officer.
Wang said there are no changes to the broader Meta Superintelligence Labs structure, which was put together in the summer to revamp Meta’s AI efforts and that the company plans to continue hiring AI-native talent.
This comes after Meta recently poached Thinking Machines co-founder Andrew Tulloch.
According to Wang, most affected employees will have the opportunity to be “redeployed to other jobs at Meta where their AI expertise will be useful.
Meta has informed some staff that their last working date will be on 21 November, and until then, they’re on a “non-working notice period”.
“During this time, your internal access will be removed, and you do not need to do any additional work for Meta,” said the message, which was viewed by CNBC.
“You may use this time to search for another role at Meta.”
The company also said it’s paying 16 weeks of severance plus two weeks for every completed year of service, “minus your notice period.”
