Mark Zuckerberg's secret project wanted Meta teams 60% smaller and run by AI agents

In 2026, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg secretly restructured the company with the help of artificial intelligence, aiming to reduce the workforce by up to 60%. This project, known as Project OT or Organization Transformation, began at a leadership retreat in Hawaii and was designed to create small, talent-dense groups of humans overseeing virtual workers. However, the plan was abruptly halted in May 2026, just before the second wave of job cuts was to take effect.

Meta announced a 10% reduction in staff, cutting approximately 8,000 jobs. Despite this, the company has since started asking engineers in its Applied AI division if they would like to return to management roles. Project OT aimed to shift staff towards priority work, such as producing training data for AI models, and eliminated middle management layers in favor of small pods of three to five members, all under the title of "builder."

Employees resisted the changes, with tracking software capturing keystrokes and mouse clicks on US laptops to teach AI agents how humans use computers. This led to a petition against it, internal backlash, and a significant drop in employee sentiment from 74% favorable to 55% in Meta's half-year Pulse survey. Technical and security incidents also increased during the project.

In response, Meta is now rebuilding the management layer it spent a year dismantling. Around 7,000 employees were moved into the Applied AI division, with some former managers taking on individual contributor roles. The company now has 75,472 employees, down 3% from the previous quarter, with revenue of $60.8 billion and expenses up 55% to $42 billion. Meta has allocated at least $130 billion to AI infrastructure this year, but the restructuring has exposed the limitations of AI technology in replacing human oversight.