Meta has eliminated 600 jobs within its artificial intelligence division, US media reported. The company confirmed on Wednesday that it continues to recruit new employees for its superintelligence lab while implementing these cuts.
FAIR and AI Infrastructure Teams Face Reductions
Axios first revealed that the layoffs will strike Meta’s Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) team, along with product-related AI and AI infrastructure units. The newer TBD Lab will remain unaffected. Chief AI officer Alexandr Wang, in a memo cited by Axios, urged impacted employees to apply for other internal roles. Most affected workers are expected to secure new positions within Meta.
Wang explained in his message that trimming team size will streamline decision-making. He said each remaining employee will handle greater responsibilities and have broader influence.
Meta Expands TBD Lab and LLM Development
The California-based company continues to recruit for TBD Lab, which builds Meta’s latest large language models (LLMs). These models power systems such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Meta’s Llama.
Meta has taken a distinct route in artificial intelligence compared to its competitors. It offers the Llama system as a semi-open source product, allowing users to access and modify core components. The company claims that over one billion people engage with its AI tools every month, though many analysts view Meta as trailing behind OpenAI and Google in promoting widespread consumer use of large language models.
