GoKawiilA hot potato: Meta set out to reorganize much of its workforce around AI at the beginning of this year, betting that agents could help the company move faster while reducing the need for larger teams. The company went ahead with 10% workforce cuts in May but ultimately dropped plans for a broader round of layoffs after its AI workplace "overhaul" ran into employee resistance and technical problems.
Meta had been preparing a restructuring program called Project OT, or Organization Transformation. According to an internal planning document reviewed by Reuters and three people familiar with the project, the plan was built around an "AI-native" model that would rely more heavily on AI agents and smaller groups of employees. Internal planning called for cutting some teams by as much as 60% through layoffs, hiring freezes, and performance-related exits.
The plan lost momentum as Meta found that its AI tools were not producing the gains executives had expected. Internal figures showed a sharp increase in AI-assisted code, but a much smaller increase in product improvements reaching users.
Code changes to Meta's internal software platforms and infrastructure rose 220% from a year earlier, according to an internal post by Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth. However, the number of new or upgraded features shipped to users rose just 36%.
Infrastructure teams had raised concerns as early as March about problems related to the increase in AI-generated code. One internal post warned of "reliability warning signs." Another, posted in April, said AI agents without sufficient oversight were taking "large-scale, disruptive actions that humans are unlikely to execute."
Internal posts said major technical and security incidents had climbed 40% from the prior year, while the time employees spent responding to them increased 70%. Meta declined to comment to Reuters on those figures.
The problems became visible outside the company in June, when hackers exploited Meta's AI-powered customer support bot to gain access to high-profile Instagram accounts, including the dormant Obama White House account.
Project OT grew out of Meta's effort to speed up product development. Last year, product executive Ime Archibong started a pilot using five small technology pods. Each group had two or three engineers and a designer working with AI tools. Rather than following six-month planning cycles, the teams were expected to build prototypes in four-week sprints.
"In basketball, embracing the fast break lets you take more shots – and better ones. We expect the same with AI tools: they allow us to explore more ideas with less cost and higher fidelity," Archibong wrote in an internal post.
Meta later circulated an "AI-Native Playbook" that proposed broader changes to how teams were structured. Traditional engineering and design roles would be replaced with the title "builder." The model also called for fewer management layers and smaller pods reporting to senior unit leaders. AI would assist with setting work priorities.
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