Meta's three-month-old Applied AI team is facing internal turmoil as employees express discontent over working conditions and management decisions. A recent report by Wired indicates growing unrest among the approximately 6,500 engineers and product managers in the unit.
Employee Outburst Highlights Tensions
The tensions became public when an employee interrupted a livestreamed presentation with a profanity-laden outburst, targeting a senior Meta AI executive. This incident is said to reflect the widespread dissatisfaction within the team, which has been tasked with creating puzzles and coding problems to train AI models. Employees have likened their situation to being in a 'gulag,' with many feeling they had no choice but to join the group or quit.
Surprise Transfers and Discontent
According to Business Insider, many employees were transferred to the AI unit unexpectedly, receiving the news via surprise emails. These transfers, described by some as 'quite random,' are part of Meta's strategy to enhance their AI models that still struggle with outperforming human capabilities in technical tasks like coding.
Internal Justifications and Reactions
In a leaked recording from April, CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained the decision to use in-house engineers instead of external contractors, citing the higher intelligence level of Meta employees. Alexandr Wang, Meta's Chief AI Officer, supports this approach, leveraging his experience from Scale AI. However, over 1,600 employees across the company have protested a monitoring program that tracks their inputs for AI training.
Management Response and Future Outlook
Meta's Chief Product Officer, Chris Cox, addressed the 'brutal' work environment in a call with employees. Mark Zuckerberg also acknowledged the distress caused by recent changes in an internal memo, admitting mistakes and reiterating Meta's aim to be a leading workplace for top talent. The Applied AI team, led by Maher Saba and reporting to CTO Andrew Bosworth, was initially structured with up to 50 employees per manager, adding to the pressure within the team.
TechCrunch reached out to Meta for comment on the situation.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/12/metas-months-old-ai-unit-is-a-soul-crushing-gulag-say-the-engineers-stuck-inside-it/
