Subtle but striking remarks from Mark Zuckerberg during Meta’s latest earnings call have set off a wider debate about jobs in the age of artificial intelligence. While layoffs were not mentioned directly, the Meta CEO said AI tools are now allowing 1 person to do work that earlier required an entire team.
Zuckerberg explained that new internal AI systems are helping engineers move faster, handle larger projects, and depend less on big teams. “We’re starting to see projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person,” he said. He added that Meta’s priority is to attract people who can fully use these tools. “I want to make sure that as many of these very talented people as possible choose Meta as the place that they can make the greatest impact.”
This growing confidence in AI is backed by heavy investment. Meta plans to increase its AI spending by about 70 percent this year. The company has already seen a strong rise in output per engineer in 2025, driven largely by agentic coding, where AI actively helps write and manage code instead of just offering suggestions.
Smaller teams often raise fears of job losses, especially after years of layoffs across the tech sector. Meta’s leadership tried to address this concern. Chief financial officer Susan Li said Meta is still hiring in critical areas. The company ended the December quarter with 6 percent more employees than a year earlier, supported by recruitment in monetisation, infrastructure, regulation, compliance, and Superintelligence Labs. She also noted that competition for skilled talent remains intense.
Meta’s approach reflects a broader trend. Many large firms are cutting management layers to reduce friction. Zuckerberg supported flatter organisations as early as 2023. In late 2025, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company cut vice president and manager roles by 10 percent.
Beyond big tech, companies like Walmart, Wayfair, and Block are shifting managers into hands-on roles. Amazon recently announced plans to cut 16,000 corporate jobs, marking its 2nd major layoff round in 4 months.
Startups are moving even faster. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said AI could soon let solo founders build billion-dollar companies. At Meta, limits remain, as demand for AI tools is growing faster than computing capacity. Still, Zuckerberg is confident. “I think that 2026 is going to be the year that AI starts to dramatically change the way that we work,” he said.
For now, Meta has not signaled new layoffs. But the message is clear: fewer people may do more work, with higher expectations, as AI reshapes jobs across the tech industry.
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