Zuckerberg Admits AI Agent Progress Lagging, Meta Misjudged Restructuring Timing

(New York, July 2) Reuters reported that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted in an employee meeting that the company's large-scale restructuring had problems and that the technological development of "AI agents" was not progressing as expected.

Zuckerberg stated in the meeting that the organizational restructuring process, including large-scale layoffs, was not agile or smooth, and that senior management had misjudged the timing for driving change.

Zuckerberg and other Meta executives are currently trying to adjust the direction of organizational changes initiated earlier this year, but have not altered the overall strategy. Meta laid off approximately 10% of its global workforce in May and reassigned about 7,000 employees to artificial intelligence (AI) related teams, a move that sparked employee backlash and concerns about morale.

This wave of changes is part of a broader restructuring plan aimed at funding expensive AI infrastructure and enabling Meta to benefit from efficiency gains brought about by AI assistance. Zuckerberg told employees in May that no further company-wide layoffs were expected this year, but some employees remain skeptical.

He stated in the meeting that looking back over the past four months, "the trajectory of AI agents has not accelerated as we expected," and that the company's bets on the new architecture "have not yet shown concrete results." AI agents refer to automated systems that can perform tasks on behalf of users.

Meta expects to invest up to $145 billion (approximately NT$4.6 trillion) in AI infrastructure this year, a significant portion of the more than $700 billion in total AI investments by major tech companies.

Zuckerberg said he expects Meta to start seeing more tangible results from its AI investments within the next three to six months. (Compiled by Shi Shi) 1150703

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