Meta is reversing course and asking some AI division workers to become managers again

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The opt-in program targets individual contributors in Meta's Applied AI unit, which absorbed roughly 7,000 employees earlier this year

Photo by Laurent Hou/Hans Lucas /AFP via Getty Images

Meta $META is asking some employees in its Applied AI division to move back into management roles, according to Business Insider. Four people with knowledge of the matter told the outlet about the program, which was described as opt-in.

The shift affects individual contributors within Applied AI, a division Meta launched this year to focus on training AI models. Some of those employees had previously held management positions before being reassigned to individual contributor roles within the unit, according to Business Insider.

The move represents a partial reversal of a broader push Meta has made toward flatter organizational structures. Over the past year, the company has made a sustained push to trim middle management and shift toward smaller, leaner teams, according to Business Insider. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has held up startup-style organizations as a model, particularly as AI takes on more work.

Meta's restructuring earlier this year took two forms: around 8,000 employees, representing roughly one in ten workers, received layoff notices, while more than 7,000 others were channeled into new AI-oriented groups such as Applied AI Engineering. Meta Chief People Officer Janelle Gale, in a memo at the time, said the company was reducing managerial layers and moving toward a structure where teams "can move faster and with more ownership."

Managers bore a disproportionate share of those job losses, a Business Insider analysis of public layoff notices determined. Meta declined to comment on the latest management changes.

Meta has made adjustments to the Applied AI reorganization before. Earlier, the company gave some employees who had been moved into the unit the option to leave, following complaints from workers who felt they had been involuntarily pulled into the division.

Meta is not alone among large tech companies in recalibrating its approach to team structure. Uber $UBER, for instance, recently moved to eliminate half of its "micro-teams" in connection with layoffs of its own.

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