Meta CEO says AI agent progress is slower than expected

At an internal town hall—an internal company meeting for employees—held on Thursday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that the pace of development for AI agents has not “accelerated in the way” executives had previously expected. The admission, reported by Reuters, highlights the challenges facing the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp as it attempts to pivot its operations toward autonomous software programs. The slower-than-expected progress suggests that replacing people with AI may not be as easy to do as the company anticipated.

The corporate restructuring has already resulted in workforce disruption. According to reports from Bloomberg, Meta previously laid off 8,000 employees, which represents approximately 10% of its corporate workforce. In tandem with these cuts, the company reassigned 7,000 employees to various AI-focused groups, including an internal unit called Agent Transformation. During the Thursday meeting, Zuckerberg commented on these job cuts, noting that they were apparently not as “clean” as they should have been. He reportedly added that the cuts were made because top officials at the company “were worried that we weren’t going to move fast enough to adapt” to the changing landscape of the technology industry.

However, this organizational shift has created internal friction. While Meta has pivoted thousands of staff members to focus on AI agents, several investigative reports have depicted the months-old AI unit as a “soul-crushing gulag,” according to some of the engineers assigned to it. Despite these internal tensions and the transition, Meta continues to back its strategy with capital deployment. The company is expected to spend as much as $145 billion on AI infrastructure this year, according to Reuters, highlighting the scale of its financial commitment.

The financial investment has yet to translate into the desired operational velocity. Zuckerberg apparently stated that the perceived upside of the new AI-focused company structure has not “come to fruition yet.” Despite the slow start, the CEO expressed belief that the company will begin to see improvements from its AI investments during the next three to six months, pointing to a medium-term horizon for the strategic pivot.

TechCrunch reached out to Meta for comment regarding the town hall meeting.

Why it matters

Meta’s aggressive pivot to AI, marked by significant layoffs and restructuring, has yet to yield the expected acceleration in AI agent development, prompting internal concern from leadership.