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CEO Mark Zuckerberg said artificial intelligence tools now allow Meta employees to do work that once required large teams.
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As output per engineer continues to rise, Meta plans to increase AI spending by about 70% this year.
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Despite computing limitations, Meta says it is looking to hire top AI talent.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said artificial intelligence is changing what individual workers at the company can do, a sign that the company is adopting new hiring strategies.
During an earnings call with analysts on Thursday, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg said the company was investing in more AI-native tools to boost individual contributors and flatten teams. However, this work was somewhat limited due to lack of computing resources.
“We’re starting to see that projects that used to require large teams can now be done by one very talented person,” he said. “I want to make sure that as many talented people as possible choose Meta as the place where they can make the biggest impact.”
The parent company of Facebook and Instagram reported fourth-quarter revenue and earnings that beat Wall Street expectations and said it plans to increase spending on artificial intelligence by about 70% this year. Meta also said output per engineer has increased significantly in the last year, with much of the growth coming from the adoption of agent coding.
Although the team is shrinking, finance chief Susan Lee said on the earnings call that the company is still hungry for top talent. “It’s still a very competitive recruitment market but we want to invest as aggressively as possible,” she said.
Li also noted that Meta’s headcount increased by 6% at the end of the December quarter compared with the same period last year, driven by hiring in areas such as monetization, infrastructure, Meta’s super smart lab, governance and compliance.
Meta isn’t the only company focusing on smaller teams. This strategy is popular in the startup world because founders have long prioritized fighting spirit. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman predicts this trend will stop in February 2024.
“We will soon see 10-person companies valued in the billions,” he said at the time. “In my little group chat with my tech CEO friends, there was this bet: Year 1 there would be a single-person billion-dollar company that would be unthinkable without AI. And now. [it] will happen. “
Meanwhile, major companies including Amazon and Intel have been slimming down their ranks of middle managers in recent years to increase efficiency by reducing bureaucracy. Meta’s Zuckerberg wrote a memo in 2023 titled “Flatter Faster,” and in late 2024, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees that the company would cut vice president and manager positions by 10% as part of a drive to increase efficiency.
This trend isn’t limited to tech companies. Retailers like Walmart and Wayfair and fintech companies like Block have been moving managers into non-management positions. Some companies have also conducted multiple rounds of mass layoffs. On Wednesday, Amazon said it would lay off 16,000 corporate employees, its second round of layoffs in four months.
During Meta’s earnings call, the company acknowledged that its goal of relying on a small AI-savvy workforce is challenged by a shortage of computing resources as demand across the company grows faster than supply. Still, Zuckerberg remains confident in his prospects for increased efficiency.
“I think 2026 will be the year that artificial intelligence starts to dramatically change the way we work,” he said. “As we address this challenge, our north star is creating the best places for individuals to make a huge impact.”
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