AI Agents Meant To Replace Meta Workers Made “Large-Scale, Disruptive Actions”
Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:
Earlier this year, Meta created a "plan" to reduce some of its teams by as much as 60 percent to make the company "AI native," Reuters reported today, citing two people familiar with Meta's internal affairs.
Reuters' report highlights the challenges organizations face when analyzing the best uses for AI and determining when the technology is a better fit for certain tasks than employees.
Meta confirmed to Reuters that the plan, reportedly codenamed Project OT (short for organization transformation), explored scenarios in which Meta reduced some team headcounts by 60 percent and that the plan called for two rounds of layoffs. Meta wouldn't confirm which teams Project OT affected.
Meta told the publication:
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. 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.
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. 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.
Reuters reported that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg "set Project OT in motion and directed executives to proceed with the changes to management structures" earlier this year. It said that the first round of layoffs from Project OT occurred in May and that Meta canceled the second.
Reuters said it reviewed "scores of internal documents, posts, and recordings" and spoke with "more than 20 people with knowledge of Meta's inner workings" about the since-scrapped plans.
Per the publication, Meta executives created Project OT in January. Project OT reportedly explored using AI to perform "much of the daily work performed by thousands of human employees." Small teams of people would oversee the AI, the report said, citing "one internal planning document reviewed by Reuters and three people familiar with the project."
In these scenarios, Meta would give some employees new roles and lay off others. One HR executive reportedly said that Meta would have reduced its headcount by about 25 percent or more under these scenarios. Meta told Reuters that it canceled Project OT before determining how many layoffs the plan called for.
Meta was going to use some of the money that it saved from layoffs to pay for high-performing employees, especially those with AI engineering skills, Reuters reported, citing "two people familiar with the matter."
One of the Project OT documents that Reuters reviewed described "AI native" as a company where "AI-ready tools and agents interact, workflows are automated, [and] new builds are AI-first." Being "AI native" also means, per the document, selling AI agents to third parties, which Meta started doing in June.
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