Meta CTO says employee morale is near its lowest in company history

Summary

Meta is racing to win the artificial intelligence battle. But inside the company, many employees are struggling to keep pace. In May this year, the tech giant laid off around 8,000 employees and r eassigned thousands more as part of a major push to reorganise the company around AI. The company created a new Applied AI division, with around 6,500 engineers and product managers moved from different teams to work on AI projects. Reports at the time suggested that employees were unhappy with the sweeping changes. Now, those concerns have been publicly acknowledged by one of Meta's top executives. According to a Business Insider report, Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew "Boz" Bosworth said morale at the company is near an all-time low as recent mass layoffs and internal AI initiatives continue to unsettle many longtime employees. Morale is "maybe not the worst it's ever been in 20 years here, but it's probably up there. According to a report by Wired, Bosworth, who is regarded as a loyalist of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in a memo told employees that the company did an "atrocious" job of rolling out its new artificial intelligence division. He wrote, "We obviously did an atrocious job explaining the vision, giving people a clear picture of how we would support them and their careers in the shift, and painting a picture of how it would change over time." The admission offered a rare glimpse into the uncertainty many employees have reportedly felt as Meta rapidly reshapes itself around AI.