Meta AI agents not advancing as quickly as planned, Zuckerberg tells staff: report Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock
Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META, XETRA:FB2A, SIX:FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg has acknowledged shortcomings in Meta’s sweeping restructuring efforts during an internal town hall on Thursday, saying the company’s AI agent systems had not advanced as quickly as expected, according to a recording heard by Reuters.
Zuckerberg said the restructuring, which included major job cuts and a broad reassignment of employees toward artificial intelligence initiatives, had not been as “clean” as it could have been and that executives miscalculated the timing of the changes.
He added that Meta’s bets on the new organizational structure had “not come to fruition yet.”
The comments come after Meta in May laid off about 10% of its global workforce and shifted roughly 7,000 employees into AI-focused teams. The changes were part of a wider effort to free up resources for large-scale investments in AI infrastructure and to position the company to benefit from efficiency gains from AI-assisted work.
The restructuring prompted internal pushback and raised concerns among employees about morale, though Zuckerberg previously told staff he did not expect further companywide layoffs this year.
According to the recording, Zuckerberg said “the trajectory of the agentic development over at least the last four months hasn’t really accelerated in the way that we expected,” referring to AI agents, automated systems designed to perform tasks on behalf of users.
He said internal discussions earlier this year had been driven by concerns that Meta was not moving quickly enough to adapt. Zuckerberg added that executives had been “super optimistic” about tools such as Claude Code from AI startup Anthropic during the planning stages of the restructuring.
Despite the slower-than-expected progress, Zuckerberg said he anticipates Meta will begin seeing more meaningful benefits from its AI investments within the next three to six months.
Meta is projected to spend as much as $145 billion on AI infrastructure this year, part of a broader wave of spending by Big Tech companies that collectively exceeds $700 billion focused on artificial intelligence.
A Meta spokesperson declined to comment on the report, according to Reuters.
Shares of Meta finished Thursday’s session down 5% at about $583.