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.