Project OT envisioned AI agents taking over tasks currently handled by employees, with smaller teams supervising automated systems.
The plan considered cutting certain teams by up to 60% while closing vacant positions and removing some low-performing employees, raising fears of another major layoff wave.
Meta said Project OT was a scenario-planning exercise and that thousands of employees were ultimately redeployed to newly created priority teams focused on AI work.
Meta Wanted AI To Replace Humans? Inside Zuckerberg’s Abandoned Project OT
Meta explored an internal restructuring plan called Project OT that could have cut some team sizes by up to 60% as Mark Zuckerberg pushed to make the company more AI-driven, but the initiative was ultimately shelved
Summary
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Mark Zuckerberg and Meta executives developed and later abandoned an internal initiative known as Project OT. The restructuring plan aimed to turn the technology firm into an "AI-native" company. Artificial intelligence agents were slated to replace human roles across various departments. Small, "talent-dense" teams of human staff would then oversee these automated systems.
Project OT—short for Organisation Transformation—could have slashed certain team sizes by up to 60 per cent, Reuters reported, citing internal documents and people familiar with the project.
This shift towards AI agents threatened to trigger layoffs surpassing the previous 25 per cent workforce reduction at Meta.
The plan also included the closure of open positions and the removal of employees considered poor performers. The company ultimately shelved the ambitious transition before full implementation.
Why Plan Was Shelved
Meta initiated the first phase of its restructuring by dismissing 10 per cent of its workforce on 20 May. Zuckerberg subsequently cancelled the second wave of job cuts scheduled for November, Reuters reported.
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Staff at the technology firm had entered an "open revolt" over the transition. Employees feared Project OT was specifically designed to replace their jobs with automated systems.
The AI agents powering the initiative also failed to deliver the anticipated productivity improvements.
Simultaneously, investors began questioning the financial rationale behind Meta's substantial capital expenditure on artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Meta Responds To Reports
Meta confirmed to Reuters that the project was a scenario planning exercise to evaluate cost-cutting measures and redeploy staff to priority areas, such as producing training data for its AI models.
"As part of our company restructuring earlier this year, we asked some teams to conduct a scenario planning exercise looking at the potential impact of redeployments, open role closures and cuts," Meta stated in a statement reported by Reuters
The technology firm confirmed the exercise considered reducing specific teams by 60 per cent across two waves. Meta had previously eliminated roughly 25 per cent of its total workforce during an earlier restructuring phase.
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"This ultimately resulted in moving thousands of employees to do priority work on several newly-established teams, as has been publicly reported. Ultimately, we didn’t move forward with every scenario from the exercise—and it was never assumed we would," the company stated
The specific reasons behind Zuckerberg halting the programme remain unclear. Meta declined to make the founder available for comment.