Meta is said to be planning sweeping layoffs that could affect 20% or more of the company. If sources are to be believed, ‌Meta seeks to offset costly artificial intelligence infrastructure bets and prepare for greater efficiency brought about by AI-assisted workers.

According to the sources, no date has been set for the cuts and the magnitude has not been finalized.

Top executives have recently signaled the plans to other senior leaders at Meta and told them to begin planning how to cut back.

"This is speculative reporting about theoretical approaches," Meta spokesperson Andy Stone ⁠said in response to questions about the plan to Reuters.

If Meta settles on the 20% figure, the layoffs will be the company's most significant since a restructuring in late 2022 and early 2023 that it dubbed the "year of efficiency." According to its latest filing, Meta employed nearly 79,000 people as of December 31.

The company laid off 11,000 staffers in November 2022, or around 13% of its workforce at the time. Around four months later, it announced it was cutting another 10,000 jobs.

 Over the last year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been pushing Meta to compete more forcefully in generative AI. The company has offered huge pay packages, some worth hundreds of millions of dollars over four years, to court top AI researchers to a new superintelligence team.