Mark Zuckerberg Had a Secret Plan to Replace Meta Staff With AI Agents, and It Backfired Spectacularly

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's secret plan to replace thousands of human staffers with AI agents, codenamed Project Organization Transformation, backfired after the company laid off roughly 8,000 people in May, triggering lawsuits, a morale crisis, and a canceled second wave of cuts. Reuters reported that Meta executives originally wanted to cut teams by as much as 60 percent, but the plan collapsed as AI agent development lagged and AI-generated code caused technical incidents. Meta raised its 2026 spending forecast to as high as $145 billion despite cratering cash flow, and Zuckerberg admitted in July that AI agent progress was slower than expected.

In May, Meta laid off roughly ten percent of its global workforce, affecting almost 8,000 people. The vast culling came amidst repeated promises of an AI-led technological revolution that would make human labor a thing of the past. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in particular, was clearly infatuated by the idea. As Reuters reports https://www.reuters.com/investigations/mark-zuckerberg-had-bold-plan-replace-meta-staff-with-ai-heres-how-it-imploded-2026-08-26/ , Meta execs developed a radical plan under his leadership, codenamed Project Organization Transformation, or Project OT for short, to have AI agents assume the roles of thousands of human staffers. According to the news agency’s extensive reporting, execs originally wanted to cut teams by as much as 60 percent, a staggering number that quickly turned out to be completely unrealistic. A second “wave” of layoffs following May’s brutal layoffs was ultimately called off as Zuckerberg’s plans to rid his company of pesky and expensive human resources crumbled in an embarrassing setback. The layoffs in May ballooned into a PR disaster of epic proportions. One lawsuit filed by 26 employees accused the company of using an internal AI platform to select targets https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/meta-biased-ai-layoffs-workers-labor-lawsuit , disproportionately targeting people with disabilities. Meanwhile, the poorly executed firings threw workplace morale in a tailspin https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/meta-zuckerberg-workers-morale-layoffs , with furious staffers lashing out in expletive-laden rants https://www.wired.com/story/mark-zuckerberg-meta-employee-meeting-interrupt-ai/ on internal message boards as Zuckerberg promised better snacks and hackathons https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/mark-zuckerberg-employees-fun-hackathon-layoffs . Meta also received serious flack https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/meta-program-spies-employees-backfires for trying to install https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/meta-employee-attacks-zuckerberg-employee-data surveillance software on staffers’ computers to train AI on everything they typed and clicked on https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/meta-track-everything-workers-type-click-train-ai . Zuckerberg has also had little to show for his AI efforts, even as he conceded that the cuts were meant to clear up funds for ballooning capital expenditures https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/meta-ceo-attributes-layoffs-plan-capex-wont-rule-out-further-job-cuts-2026-04-30/ . Unperturbed, Meta raised its spending forecast for 2026 as high as $145 billion, even as cash flow cratered https://www.reuters.com/business/meta-narrows-annual-capex-forecast-ai-buildout-grows-2026-07-29/ . The CEO admitted in July https://www.reuters.com/business/zuckerberg-says-ai-agent-development-going-slower-than-expected-2026-07-02/ that AI agent tech was progressing far slower than he expected. Per Reuters , staffers were also busy “firefighting” a major spike in AI-generated code causing technical and security incidents. In short, it’s no wonder Meta’s “AI-native playbook” went up in flames. While Meta acknowledged the plan to cut some teams by up to 60 percent, the company told Reuters in a statement that “ultimately, we didn’t move forward with every scenario from the exercise — and it was never assumed we would.” While Zuckerberg has promised that there won’t be any more company-wide layoffs this year, staffers are still expecting future job cuts based on performance. More on Meta: Teen Boys Are Using Meta Glasses to Harass and Bully Girls at High Schools and Middle Schools