Meta spent billions on AI, but Zuckerberg says progress has been slower than expected: Report

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted the limitations of the recent company-wide restructuring during an internal town hall, noting that the company’s AI agents have not developed as quickly as he had hoped, according to a Reuters report.

Zuckerberg also reportedly said that the recent reorganisation, which included major job cuts, was not as ‘clean’ as it could have been and the executives miscalculated the timing of the changes.

The report notes that Zuckerberg and some other Meta executives have been looking to moderate some of the changes introduced by the company earlier this year without fundamentally changing course.

Notably, Meta had laid off about 10% of its global workforce earlier this year while reassigning around 7,000 employees to its AI-focused teams in May, which had reportedly led to pushback from employees and raised concerns about morale.

The changes were said to be a part of the broader restructuring that is aimed at funding costly investments in AI infrastructure and positioning Meta to take advantage of the efficiency gains from AI-assisted work.

Zuckerberg had said in May that he did not expect any more company-wide layoffs, but many of the employees were reportedly sceptical.

Zuckerberg on Meta’s AI progress

Speaking at the internal town hall, Zuckerberg reflected on the AI strategy and said that the progress of AI agents over the past four months had fallen short of expectations.

“In retrospect, the trajectory of the agentic development over at least the last four months hasn’t really accelerated in the way that we expected,” Zuckerberg was quoted as saying, adding that Meta’s bets on the new organisational structure “haven’t come to fruition yet.”

Zuckerberg also said that when Meta’s leadership team planned the restructuring in January and February, “they were worried that we weren’t going to move fast enough to adapt.”

He also said that executives were ‘super optimistic’ at the time about the use of tools like Claude Code.

Reportedly, Meta will spend up to $145 billion on AI infrastructure this year, which marks a big part of Big Tech’s over $700 billion technology outlay.

The Meta chief also said that he expects the social media behemoth to begin seeing more significant benefits from AI investments within the next three to six months.

During the same town hall, Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth also addressed the recent mouse-tracking software controversy, noting that a review of a recent data security incident with the company’s software had shown that no employee data was included in AI training.

He added that if Meta decides to resume the programme, it will operate on an opt-in basis, allowing employees to choose whether they want to participate.

“For people who are comfortable, that’s great, they can contribute to this kind of great human survey. To people who are not, it is not an issue,” he reportedly told employees at the town hall.