Earlier this week, a routine livestreamed Meta meeting descended into open revolt.

During a presentation open to thousands of employees, one participant suddenly interrupted the speakers with a profanity-laced outburst, according to WIRED. The employee declared they felt like "the company's bitch" and demanded that the people leading the call write to a specific Meta AI executive and "tell him that he's a piece of shit."

One presenter reportedly covered their face with their hands. Moderators asked everyone to mute. The technical discussion eventually continued, but the moment - which employees in the chat described as "spicy" - revealed something much deeper: widespread anger and disillusionment inside Meta's newly formed Applied AI unit.

"It's literally the gulag. You have zero purpose in life all of a sudden, you barely interact with anyone, you just have these tasks every week," one current employee told WIRED on condition of anonymity. 

A Rapid, Painful Reorganization

That unit, formed in March 2026 to support researchers at Meta's Superintelligence Labs, now employs roughly 6,500 engineers and product managers. Many were reassigned with little warning. Their new work - largely generating puzzles, coding challenges, and evaluation tasks to test how reliably AI models can solve problems - has left a significant portion of the team feeling demoralized and stripped of purpose.

"Most people find the work soul-crushing," another employee said. All three sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. Meta declined to comment.

Key Numbers

The Applied AI unit is only the most visible flashpoint in a much broader restructuring. In May, Meta laid off approximately 8,000 employees as part of an AI-focused overhaul. Another ~7,000 people were transferred into new AI-related initiatives.

The speed and bluntness of the changes have created ripple effects across multiple divisions. Employees in data center engineering and Instagram have reported increased stress and workload. Meanwhile, more than 1,600 Meta employees signed a petition demanding the company stop a recently launched program that monitors U.S. employees' clicks, keystrokes, and screen activity to generate training data for AI agents. The company has since scaled the program back slightly.

"It's Like What The Fuck"

During an all-hands meeting this week for Instagram employees, Chief Product Officer Chris Cox addressed the turmoil directly. According to a recording obtained by WIRED, Cox described the past few months as a "difficult" and "brutal" environment created by the "insanity of this company."

He praised Instagram teams for continuing to ship features and serve roughly 2 billion users while navigating constant upheaval. Then he compared the situation to "running a marathon in the middle of a hailstorm and then, like, your teammate gets replaced and then we're recording you."

"It's like what the fuck," said Cox - adding again, "It is like what the fuck." 

Cox also struck a notably measured tone on AI itself: "It is neither god, nor is it the devil. And it's nowhere near as good as you think it is, and it is nowhere near as bad as you think it is."

Engineers across Meta have reported feeling sidelined and demoralized by sudden reassignments into repetitive AI evaluation work.

Zuckerberg Acknowledges Mistakes

The same week, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sent an internal memo to employees acknowledging that the company had made errors in how it reshaped its workforce around AI.

"Given the complexity of these changes, we've made mistakes and will almost certainly make more," said Zuckerberg, according to Reuters. 

Zuckerberg wrote that he is "focused on providing as much stability as possible" going forward and does not expect additional company-wide layoffs this year. He said Meta would work to create "important new roles" for employees who were reassigned to AI training and support work.

He also noted plans to increase spending on team-building initiatives, including a large-scale hackathon in July, and to scale back the unusually wide manager spans that appeared in the new Applied AI unit (some reportedly reached 50:1 ratios).

Why The Work Feels Like Punishment

The core complaint inside Applied AI is not that the company is investing in AI - most employees understand the strategic importance. It is the nature of the tasks many were suddenly asked to perform and the way the transition was handled.

Generating high-quality evaluation puzzles and coding problems is genuinely difficult and valuable work for frontier model development. But for engineers who previously built products, shipped features, and collaborated creatively, being reassigned to repetitive, solitary evaluation tasks has felt like a demotion.

"You have zero purpose in life all of a sudden," one of the employees told WIRED. "You barely interact with anyone, you just have these tasks every week."

The flat organizational structure exacerbated the problem. With so few managers, many employees felt they had little support, visibility, or path to more meaningful roles.

Many engineers were reassigned to repetitive puzzle-generation and model-evaluation tasks - work they describe as soul-crushing compared to their previous roles.

The Stakes Are High

Meta is not alone in pushing rapid AI-driven reorganization. Across Silicon Valley, companies are redirecting resources, cutting teams, and experimenting with new workflows to stay competitive in the AI race. But few have done so at Meta's scale or with such visible internal blowback.

The risk for Meta is real. Engineering talent remains the scarcest resource in AI. If skilled people feel their work has been devalued or that leadership is moving too fast without regard for the human impact, attrition to competitors becomes more likely - exactly when the company needs its best people most.

Zuckerberg's memo and Cox's candid remarks suggest leadership is aware of the damage. The promised July hackathon, new role creation, and reduced manager spans are concrete steps toward repair. Whether they will be enough remains to be seen.

For now, the message from parts of the workforce is clear: the company's aggressive AI transformation has left many employees feeling used, undervalued, and angry. And some are no longer willing to stay quiet about it.