Meta transfers top engineers into new AI tooling team

Visitors gather at a sign outside Meta headquarters on Thursday, March 26, 2026, in Menlo Park, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Meta is drafting top software engineers from across the company into a new AI engineering organization created last month, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters, part of a reorganization of its workforce in preparation for layoffs.

The social media company is starting to inform staffers selected for transfer into the Applied AI (AAI) Engineering unit this week, according to the memo, authored by the head of the new organization, Maher Saba.

Saba, a vice president in the Reality Labs division and longtime lieutenant of Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth, had initially invited volunteers to sign up for the organization when he announced its establishment last month.

Joining was no longer voluntary, he said in his new memo.

The company was “now moving to the next phase: scaling the team” and had worked with leaders across Meta to “identify strong SWE (software engineer) talent” for it.

“AAI is one of the company’s highest priorities and we’re resourcing it by moving our strongest talent to address it. Therefore, the transfers aren’t optional,” he wrote, responding to a question from an employee.

A Meta spokesperson declined to comment on the memo, first reported by the Information, or plans for the team.

The reorganization comes as Meta plans sweeping layoffs ​that could eliminate tens of thousands of jobs at the company, as it seeks to offset costly artificial intelligence infrastructure bets and prepare for greater efficiency brought about by AI-assisted workers.

The Applied AI organization is part of that vision, tasked with building tools and evaluations to accelerate the development of AI agents that can write code and carry out complex tasks autonomously.

The end goal, Saba said last month, was to have the agents perform the bulk of the work to build, test and ship products and infrastructure at Meta, with human staffers monitoring them.

The Facebook and Instagram owner has pushed employees to hit targets for AI usage this year and has restructured some teams within Reality Labs to be “AI native,” with fewer managers keeping tabs on large teams using AI-generated reports on their performance.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg alluded to the transformation he had planned for the company in a January call with investors, saying he expected 2026 to be “the year that AI starts to dramatically change the way that we work.”

“We’re investing in AI-native tooling so individuals at Meta can get more done, we’re elevating individual contributors, and flattening teams,” he said.

If the plan is successful, he added, “then I think that we’re going to get a lot more done and I think it’ll be a lot more fun.”

Reporting by Katie Paul in New York and Jeff Horwitz in San Francisco; Editing by Jennifer Saba and Lisa Shumaker