Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg warned employees that success "isn't a given" as the social media giant pressed ahead with thousands of layoffs, deepened its investment in artificial intelligence and faced growing internal unrest over workplace data collection tied to AI training.
The comments came during a tense period inside Meta, where executives are simultaneously promising a leaner, AI-driven future while confronting employee backlash over technologies designed to monitor worker behavior, including mouse movements, keystrokes and other digital activity.
"AI is the most consequential technology of our lifetimes," Zuckerberg told employees, according to CNBC. He said the company is restructuring itself "to make sure it will always be the best place for talented people to have the greatest impact."
The latest reductions mark another major shift in Meta's yearslong transformation away from its earlier metaverse-heavy strategy toward what executives now openly describe as an AI-first corporate structure.
Meta has already begun carrying out layoffs affecting thousands of workers and has abandoned plans to fill roughly 6,000 open positions. Reports have also suggested additional reductions could occur later this year, although Zuckerberg attempted to calm concerns Wednesday by telling staff that executives "do not expect other companywide layoffs this year."
Even so, the uncertainty surrounding staffing levels remains evident within Meta's leadership ranks.
During the company's first-quarter earnings call, Meta finance chief Susan Li acknowledged executives are still trying to determine what the company should ultimately look like in the AI era.
"We don't really know what the optimal size of the company will be in the future," Li said.
Meta ended the first quarter of 2026 with approximately 77,900 employees, down 1% from the previous quarter following earlier rounds of redundancies.
Unlike previous cuts, which Meta framed largely as efforts to reduce inefficiency after aggressive metaverse spending, the latest restructuring is increasingly being interpreted internally as a direct exchange between human labor and computational infrastructure.
Executives have sharply increased spending on AI-related data centers, chips and computing systems, while repeatedly emphasizing operational efficiency and flatter management structures.
"People tell us that they appreciate the ability to take greater ownership and execute their vision with less bureaucracy and management to navigate," Zuckerberg told staff.
The company's aggressive AI pivot, however, has also triggered a widening employee revolt over internal surveillance concerns.
According to Reuters, Meta employees have begun distributing flyers across company offices urging colleagues to oppose a new initiative designed to collect workplace interaction data to train AI systems.
One flyer reportedly asked employees: "Don't want to work at the Employee Data Extraction Factory?"
Workers involved in the campaign argue the company has failed to provide sufficient transparency regarding how employee data will be collected, reviewed and protected.
An online petition circulating internally claims that "when employees asked what privacy reviews were conducted, including any 'people data reviews' (which are required for processing employee data), no completed privacy reviews were provided."
The petition further alleged: "The outlined privacy mitigations were vague, and leadership's confidence in them appeared limited - evidenced by the selective opt-out afforded to executives."
Employees also raised broader ethical concerns about the normalization of workplace surveillance technologies inside one of the world's largest technology firms.
"Collecting and repurposing this kind of data raises serious concerns around privacy, consent, and trust in the workplace," the petition states.
