Meta’s artificial intelligence ambitions are running headlong into a problem that money alone can’t solve: nobody inside the company seems to agree on what the plan actually is.
Executives and employees alike are grappling with a chaotic AI strategy, according to sources and internal discussions reviewed by WIRED. The confusion spans everything from workforce restructuring to a fundamental philosophical question about whether Meta’s AI models should remain open-source or shift toward proprietary, closed systems.
The great reshuffling
Meta is in the middle of moving roughly 7,000 employees into AI-focused roles as part of an aggressive restructuring effort. The reallocation is happening alongside planned management cuts and layoffs. The company that once bet its future on the metaverse, even renaming itself in the process, is now redirecting that energy toward AI.
Part of the restructuring involves Meta’s superintelligence lab, which recently produced its first model called Muse Spark. That model is slated for deployment across Instagram and WhatsApp, suggesting Meta wants its AI capabilities embedded directly into products that billions of people already use daily.
