Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has told employees that the company’s AI agents are developing more slowly than executives had expected. His comments came after a major workforce restructuring that cut about 8,000 jobs and moved another 7,000 employees into AI-focused teams.
Speaking during an internal town hall on Thursday, Zuckerberg said progress had not “accelerated in the way” company leaders anticipated over the previous four months. He also acknowledged that the expected benefits of Meta’s revised organizational structure had not yet appeared.
Zuckerberg said the company still expects its AI investments to begin producing more visible improvements within the next three to six months. Meta did not publicly release a transcript of the meeting.
Workforce Restructuring Followed AI Spending Increase
Meta reduced its workforce by approximately 10% in May and reassigned thousands of remaining employees to groups focused on AI development and internal automation. Those groups include Applied AI, Agent Data and Optimization, and the Agent Transformation Accelerator.
Zuckerberg reportedly said the job cuts were not handled as cleanly as executives wanted. He explained that leadership acted because it was concerned the company would not adapt quickly enough to changes across the technology industry.
The company has also faced internal dissatisfaction over the reassignment process. Some employees moved into AI teams have expressed uncertainty about their responsibilities and concerns that the work involves repetitive model-training and data-related tasks.
Zuckerberg previously acknowledged in an internal memo that Meta had made mistakes during the transition. He said the company would try to find more suitable positions for some reassigned employees and did not expect another company-wide round of layoffs this year.
Meta Plans Up to $145 Billion in Capital Spending
Meta continues to invest heavily in the data centers, chips and other infrastructure needed to develop and operate AI models. In its official first-quarter results, the company raised its 2026 capital expenditure forecast to between $125 billion and $145 billion.
The previous forecast ranged from $115 billion to $135 billion. Meta attributed the increase to higher component prices and additional data center costs needed to support future computing capacity.
The spending supports Meta’s AI models, consumer assistants, advertising tools and internal agent systems. Zuckerberg’s comments indicate that the workforce changes and investments have not yet increased agent development at the pace executives originally expected.
Featured image credits: Wikimedia Commons
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