Meta’s three-month-old Applied AI team is facing a significant internal crisis, with employees describing a hostile work environment and a unit on the verge of revolt, according to a report published by Wired in June 2026.
The situation came to a head this week when an unknown person hijacked an employee-only livestreamed presentation with an expletive-laden outburst, demanding attendees tell a senior Meta AI executive that he was “a piece of sh_t.” One presenter reportedly covered their face with their hands during the incident.
The disruption reflects broader discontent inside the roughly 6,500-person unit, made up of engineers and product managers. Employees say they were given little choice but to join — transfer or quit — leading many to call themselves “draftees.” Their primary task is generating puzzles and coding problems to train Meta’s AI models. “It’s literally the gulag,” one employee told Wired. “Most people find the work soul-crushing,” said another.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained the rationale for using internal engineers in a leaked audio recording from an April internal meeting. He cited the belief that Meta’s average employee has “significantly higher” intelligence than third-party contractors. Meta’s chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang — who sold his data-labeling startup Scale AI to Meta for $14.3 billion before taking the role — was described as deeply familiar with the data-labeling space. An internal April announcement reviewed by Business Insider noted that Meta’s AI models still could not outperform humans at technical tasks like coding.
The Applied AI team is led by Maher Saba, a 12-year Meta veteran and former Reality Labs vice president, and reports to CTO Andrew Bosworth. The unit was originally structured with up to 50 employees per manager. Separately, more than 1,600 Meta employees company-wide have signed a petition protesting a program that monitors their clicks and keystrokes for AI training purposes. Meta’s chief product officer, Chris Cox, acknowledged the “brutal” environment on an employee call this week.
Zuckerberg addressed the unrest in an internal memo Friday, acknowledging that recent changes had “caused distress” and admitting the company had made mistakes it plans to correct. He stated that “Meta’s north star is to be the best place for the most talented people in the world to make an impact.” TechCrunch reported it had reached out to Meta for comment.
Source: TechCrunch