Around 600 AI staff to be laid off at Meta’s AI Superintelligence Labs
Affected teams include AI infrastructure, FAIR, and AI product roles
Announced internally on October 22
Meta cites efficiency and reduced bureaucracy as reasons
Meta will lay off around 600 employees from its artificial intelligence division called ‘AI Superintelligence Labs’, Bloomberg reported. The company’s AI-based layoffs come just months after Mark Zuckerberg spent billions building his dream team for AI Superintelligence project.
The latest job cuts also follow closely on the heels of Meta’s recent hiring spree, during which the company poached top talent from competitors such as Apple, OpenAI, and Anthropic. The layoffs were announced internally on October 22.
Meta’s chief AI officer Alexandr Wang stated that these job cuts are aimed at “increasing efficiency and reducing bureaucracy”. “By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision, and each person will be more load-bearing,” Wang wrote in the memo, as quoted by Bloomberg.
Wang joined Meta in June this year as part of its $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI.
The report stated that these layoffs will affect staff across Meta’s AI infrastructure teams, the Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research unit (FAIR), and other AI-related product roles.
Notable, Meta’s recently established TD Lab, which includes many of its highest-paid new recruits, has been spared from the layoffs. The company is even urging impacted staff to explore opportunities in other divisions and confirmed it will keep hiring selectively for critical AI roles.
Meta has been intensifying its AI game to keep pace with competitors like OpenAI and Google. It has poured billions into AI infrastructure and top-tier talent recruitment. Following the recent layoffs, the Superintelligence Labs team now numbers just under 3,000 employees.
The impacted workforce has been notificed that their termination date is November 21 and is currently in a "non-working notice period". During this time, Meta has suspended internal access and told employees they do not need to perform additional work, while encouraging them to explore other roles within the company.
Severance packages include 16 weeks of pay, along with two extra weeks per year of service, adjusted for the notice period.
The leadership shake-up comes amid Zuckerberg’s push to accelerate AI development. After the lukewarm reception to Llama 4 release in April, Meta launched the Superintelligence Labs, led by Alexandr Wang and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman.
In July, the company projected 2025 expenses of $114–$118 billion, reflecting further investments in AI. Recently, Meta announced a $27 billion deal with Blue Owl Capital to build the Hyperion data center in rural Louisiana, which Zuckerberg said will be large enough to cover a significant part of Manhattan’s footprint.
