Meta spent months this year mapping out a restructuring that would have slashed some teams by as much as 60 percent, according to a Reuters investigation published today. The plan, codenamed Project OT — short for organization transformation — was reportedly set in motion by Mark Zuckerberg in January and envisioned AI handling much of the daily work currently performed by thousands of human employees, with small teams left to oversee the systems.
Reuters reviewed scores of internal documents, posts, and recordings, and spoke with more than 20 people familiar with Meta’s inner workings. The picture that emerges is a company seriously weighing how aggressively to replace human labor with AI, not just in engineering but across operational teams. Meta confirmed the plan existed and that it explored two rounds of layoffs, though the company wouldn’t say which teams were affected. “Ultimately, we didn’t move forward with every scenario from the exercise – and it was never assumed we would,” a Meta spokesperson told Reuters.
The first round of Project OT layoffs reportedly hit in May, but the second was canceled. That’s the crucial detail here: Meta pulled back. Whether that reflects second thoughts about AI readiness, internal resistance, or simply a reprioritization is unclear from the reporting. What’s notable is that Meta has been one of the loudest voices in the industry about AI-driven efficiency, yet even it couldn’t fully commit to a 60 percent reduction scenario.
The broader context is hard to ignore. Zuckerberg has spent the past two years pushing an efficiency narrative — the “year of efficiency” in 2023, followed by aggressive AI investments in 2024. Project OT reveals the internal planning that sits behind the public messaging. For employees across tech, it’s a sobering preview of what leadership teams are actually modeling behind closed doors, even when those plans don’t fully materialize.
