Meta has hit the brakes on hiring for its artificial intelligence unit after recently adding over 50 researchers and engineers, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
The freeze, which began last week as part of a wider shake-up within the AI group, also stops employees from shifting between teams inside the division. Staff weren’t told how long the pause will last. Any exceptions to hiring from outside would require approval from Meta’s chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, according to people familiar with the matter.
A Meta spokesperson acknowledged the hiring pause, describing it as “basic organizational planning: creating a solid structure for our new superintelligence efforts after bringing people on board and undertaking yearly budgeting and planning exercises.”
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Although major AI firms have been on a hiring spree this year, Meta has been the most aggressive, luring top researchers with massive compensation deals, sometimes running into the hundreds of millions and even turning to “reverse acquihires” to pull star talent out of startups. CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself has stepped into Meta’s AI talent hunt, personally approaching researchers from leading labs. In several cases, he has backed those efforts with eye-popping pay packages, some worth hundreds of millions of dollars and at least one deal reportedly valued at around $1.5 billion.
As part of the shake-up, Meta has split its AI operations into four distinct units. One, known as TBD Lab, focuses on superintelligence and has absorbed many of the latest hires. Another is tasked with AI-driven products, while a third handles infrastructure. The fourth group, Fundamental AI Research, continues to focus on long-term, exploratory projects and has seen little change from the restructuring, according to people familiar with the matter. All four now operate under Meta Superintelligence Labs which is Zuckerberg’s growing push to develop systems capable of surpassing human intelligence in complex cognitive work.
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Until recently, Meta operated a group called AGI Foundations, responsible for advancing its large language models, Llama. But after the newest Llama releases failed to meet expectations earlier this year, the team came under fire from company leaders and was ultimately disbanded during the latest restructuring.
By August 2025, Meta’s market capitalization stands between $1.87 trillion and $1.88 trillion. Investor trust in Meta’s AI drive and expanding smart-glasses business has been a major factor in the company’s more than 30% stock increase this year, which has brought it closer to the $2 trillion threshold.
On the deal side, the company made a bold move in June by taking a 49% stake in Scale AI for about $14.8 billion, a partnership that also brought founder Alexandr Wang into Meta to lead its new Superintelligence Labs. The momentum continued in July with the acquisition of voice-tech startup PlayAI, aimed at strengthening Meta’s capabilities in more natural human-AI interaction.