Meta is reportedly set to make thousands of workers redundant as the tech giant presses forward with AI investments at the cost of human workers.

This is according to new reportage from Reuters, which claims that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is preparing to cut 20% of its workforce. This would equate to around 16,000 employees.

The three sources Reuters spoke to said that a date for the cuts has yet to be finalised, and the exact figures have not yet been determined.

The anonymous sources claimed that Meta executives recently indicated that senior leaders should prepare for the cuts, according to Reuters.

A Meta spokesperson, however, told Reuters in a statement: “This is speculative reporting about theoretical approaches.”

The potential layoffs would be Meta’s biggest yet: the firm layed off 11,000 workers in 2022, going on to cut a further 10,000 jobs in 2023.

While Meta claims the potential layoffs are speculative, they follow recent trends for the company as it expands its investments in AI infrastructure, acquires further organisations, all the while touting AI productivity and efficiency gains.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in January that he was seeing “projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person.”

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The firm also recently acquired Moltbook, an AI agent social media firm, and is planning to spend around $2bn on acquiring Manus, a Chinese AI startup.

The company also said it would invest $600bn to construct new data centres by 2028 as firms move to build up the infrastructure necessary to fuel AI.

Meta’s own AI, however, has seen the firm split into several different directions. Besides the investments in other AI companies, Meta is also reconfiguring its own AI offering as its Llama 4 models fell short on performance benchmarks.

The firm’s newly launched Avocado model has also received a less than stellar reception, however.