Meta Platforms has detailed plans for a May 20 restructuring that combines layoffs, employee transfers and management reductions as the Facebook and Instagram parent accelerates a companywide shift toward artificial intelligence, according to an internal document reviewed by Reuters.

The document, described by Reuters in a May 18 report, says the company will carry out global workforce cuts this week while also moving thousands of employees into new AI-focused initiatives. The restructuring is intended to reshape Meta’s internal workflows, reduce layers of management and create smaller teams built around what the company described internally as “AI native design principles.”

Meta Chief People Officer Janelle Gale told employees in the memo that the company plans to move about 7,000 staff into new initiatives related to AI workflows and eliminate managerial roles, Reuters reported. The memo also said many leaders would announce organizational changes as part of the process. A Meta spokesperson declined to comment to Reuters on the plan.

The May 20 action is the latest step in a wider 2026 workforce overhaul at Meta, whose leadership has placed AI at the center of product development, infrastructure spending and internal operations. Reuters previously reported that Meta intended to lay off about 10% of its global workforce in the first wave of cuts, with additional reductions expected later in the year. The May 18 internal document adds more detail on how those job cuts are being paired with transfers and a redesigned operating structure.

According to Reuters, the layoffs and transfers together will affect about 20% of Meta’s workforce. The company had 77,986 employees as of March 31, according to its first-quarter results. On that headcount base, a 10% workforce cut would amount to roughly 7,800 positions, while the broader combination of layoffs and transfers would touch a materially larger portion of the organization.

The restructuring comes as Meta tries to convert its AI spending into operational leverage. In the internal memo cited by Reuters, Gale said teams had incorporated AI-native design principles into new structures and that many organizations could operate with flatter structures, smaller pods or cohorts, faster decision-making and greater ownership. The language points to a shift away from conventional corporate hierarchy toward a model in which teams are expected to use AI systems and automation to perform work previously handled through larger staffing layers.

The company’s new AI-related destinations for transferred employees include Applied AI Engineering and Agent Transformation Accelerator XFN, Reuters reported. Those groups are part of Meta’s internal “AI for Work” efforts and are intended to develop AI agents that can autonomously carry out tasks currently performed by human employees. Another group, Central Analytics, is expected to focus on productivity and analytics for agent development. Reuters also reported that Gale told employees details on a new Enterprise Solutions initiative would be shared soon.

The plan places Meta among a growing group of large technology companies attempting to reorganize around generative AI not only as a product category, but as a labor and process redesign tool. For Meta, the stakes are unusually high because its AI ambitions now stretch across advertising systems, consumer applications, business messaging, creator tools, coding support, agentic workflows and long-term model development. The company is also competing with OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Microsoft and other AI developers for technical leadership, infrastructure capacity and user adoption.

The May 20 restructuring is also notable because it follows Meta’s “year of efficiency” program in late 2022 and 2023, when the company eliminated about 21,000 jobs after a sharp slowdown in digital advertising growth and a period of aggressive pandemic-era hiring. That earlier round was largely presented to investors as a correction to excess cost and complexity. The 2026 restructuring has a different emphasis: it is tied more directly to the company’s view that AI will change how internal work is performed and how products are built.

Meta’s financial backdrop is stronger than it was during its prior restructuring cycle. The company reported first-quarter 2026 revenue of $56.31 billion, up 33% from a year earlier, and income from operations of $22.87 billion, up 30%. Its operating margin was 41%, unchanged from the year-earlier quarter. The company also reported $81.18 billion in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities at the end of March.

That financial strength gives Meta more capacity to invest aggressively, but it also sharpens investor focus on whether AI investment is producing durable returns. In its first-quarter report, Meta said capital expenditures, including principal payments on finance leases, were $19.84 billion. The company’s reported research and development costs rose to $17.70 billion from $12.15 billion a year earlier, reflecting the broader investment burden associated with AI, infrastructure and long-term technology programs.

Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has framed Meta’s AI strategy as central to the company’s next phase. In the first-quarter earnings release, he said Meta had a “milestone quarter” with momentum across its apps and the release of its first model from Meta Superintelligence Labs, adding that the company was on track to deliver “personal superintelligence to billions of people.” The restructuring suggests management is applying that AI-first posture internally as well as externally.

For employees, the transition has created uncertainty and internal resistance. Reuters reported that more than 1,000 employees had signed a petition opposing the installation of mouse-tracking software to train Meta’s AI models to replicate how humans interact with computers. Employees also criticized executives internally over privacy concerns and the company’s silence about layoff plans after earlier Reuters reporting on the expected cuts, according to the news service.

Reuters reported that Meta employees in North America were told to work from home on Wednesday, the day the cuts are expected to be communicated. The use of remote notification procedures has become common during large technology layoffs, allowing companies to conduct region-by-region notices while limiting disruption at offices. In Meta’s case, the restructuring is expected to proceed alongside broader organizational announcements from leaders across the company.

The reported elimination of managerial roles is an important element of the plan because it signals that Meta is targeting not only headcount totals, but also the ratio of managers to individual contributors and the speed of internal execution. Flatter structures can reduce reporting layers and accelerate decisions, but they also place greater demands on remaining employees and may complicate coordination in an organization operating global social platforms, advertising systems, AI infrastructure, hardware projects and regulatory compliance functions.

Meta’s AI workflow initiatives could also change the skill mix of its workforce. Employees moved into Applied AI Engineering, Agent Transformation Accelerator and related groups may be assigned to automate software, analytics, operations, internal support or product processes. If successful, such groups could allow Meta to standardize AI agents across business functions, using them to write code, analyze performance, route internal requests, support advertising products or assist with policy and integrity operations. If the programs underperform, the company risks disruption without corresponding productivity gains.

The restructuring also raises broader questions about how technology companies account for AI-driven productivity. Investors have rewarded companies that pair heavy AI spending with evidence of cost discipline, but the path from large-language-model investment to measurable operating leverage remains uneven across the sector. Meta’s plan gives the market a concrete case study: a profitable, cash-rich platform company is cutting roles, closing open positions, transferring staff and redesigning internal teams around AI agents while still expanding AI infrastructure and model development.

Meta has also closed an additional 6,000 open roles as part of the process, Gale told employees in an earlier memo cited by Reuters. Cutting unfilled positions reduces future hiring capacity and signals that the company is not relying only on layoffs to lower its labor trajectory. It also suggests Meta is reconsidering its workforce plan at the level of future organizational design, not merely trimming current payroll.

For the technology sector, the development is likely to intensify scrutiny of AI-linked job reductions. Meta’s move follows a period in which major employers have increasingly described AI as a driver of efficiency, automation and lower staffing needs in some functions. While companies often avoid framing layoffs as direct worker replacement by AI, the explicit movement of thousands of Meta employees into AI workflow groups and the emphasis on autonomous agents make the connection unusually visible.

The market impact will depend on whether investors view the restructuring as a disciplined reallocation of resources or a sign that AI costs are forcing deeper cuts than expected. Meta’s core advertising business remains highly profitable, and its first-quarter results showed strong growth in revenue, ad impressions and average price per ad. But the company is simultaneously funding large AI infrastructure requirements, Reality Labs losses and model-development ambitions that may take years to fully monetize.

Regulatory and reputational risks also remain part of the context. Meta operates under intense scrutiny in the United States, Europe and other markets over privacy, competition, child safety, advertising practices, political content and AI governance. Internal use of employee-behavior data to train AI models, as described in the Reuters report on the employee petition, could add another sensitive dimension if workers or regulators challenge how such data is collected, governed or deployed.

The company has not publicly released the internal restructuring document and declined to comment to Reuters. As a result, investors and employees will be watching the May 20 notices for details on which divisions are affected, how many managers are removed, how transfers are assigned and whether the first wave confirms the scale described in the internal memo. Any further cuts later in 2026 would determine whether the restructuring remains a targeted AI operating-model shift or becomes a more sweeping reduction across the company.

For now, the May 18 memo makes clear that Meta is treating AI as an organizing principle for its workforce. The company is not only building AI products for users and advertisers; it is attempting to rebuild parts of its internal labor structure around AI agents, smaller teams and fewer management layers. That makes the May 20 restructuring a significant marker in the next phase of Big Tech’s AI transition, where capital investment, job design and corporate hierarchy are increasingly being reworked at the same time.