Meta employees sue over alleged AI role in layoff selections

Twenty-six Meta employees have sued the company in federal court, alleging that its planned layoffs of 8,000 workers were shaped by internal AI systems rather than individualized human review. Meta denies that claim, saying workforce decisions were made by people, not AI.

The complaint, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, says Meta used a set of internal tools to score, rank and select employees for termination. The workers allege those systems included an internal tool referred to as “Metamate,” employee-trained “second-brain” agents, keystroke and activity monitoring, AI-token usage dashboards, and algorithmically assisted performance ranking and calibration.

The case puts a sharper legal frame around an issue many employers have treated as operational plumbing: whether productivity and AI-adoption metrics can be used in workforce cuts without discriminating against employees whose leave status or disabilities affect those inputs. According to Reuters, the lawsuit appears to be the first against a major US company challenging the alleged use of AI in layoffs.

Claims center on leave, disability and AI adoption scores

The plaintiffs say Meta’s internal dashboards classified employees by their use of company AI tools, using labels such as “AI Native,” “AI First” and “AI Enabled.” The complaint argues that metrics such as output, performance ratings, calibration scores, AI-token use and AI-adoption ratings could not be fairly accumulated by employees who were on protected medical or family leave, or whose work output was affected by a disability.

The lawsuit alleges that Meta failed to adjust those inputs for workers who had taken protected leave or requested disability accommodations. The 26 plaintiffs say they sought leave or disability accommodations during the 24 months before they were selected for termination.

Meta rejected the allegations in a statement. “These claims lack merit and are not based on facts. Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI,” the company said. Meta did not provide further comment on the case.

Layoffs followed an efficiency memo

The cuts followed a May 2026 internal memo from Chief People Officer Janelle Gale, who told employees Meta would reduce staff by about 10 percent and halt hiring for roughly 6,000 open roles. Gale said the move was part of an effort to run the company more efficiently and offset other investments.

The complaint says Meta announced the cuts after reporting record revenue the prior month and while committing to spend between $125 billion and $145 billion on artificial intelligence in 2026, more than double its 2025 expenditure.

The plaintiffs include employees in California, Illinois, Washington, New York, the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania and Florida. The complaint says some were selected for termination while on maternity, paternity or medical leave. One Meta scientist, according to the lawsuit, was selected while on approved pre-birth pregnancy leave shortly before giving birth. Others had returned to work under approved work-from-home accommodations that allegedly remained in effect when they were chosen for layoff.

Plaintiffs seek an injunction and audit

The workers allege violations of the US Family and Medical Leave Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, along with state and District of Columbia laws. The complaint also cites California rules barring automated-decision systems that create disparate-impact discrimination based on disability or sex, including pregnancy.

The employees are seeking an injunction to preserve their jobs, compensation, benefits, equity vesting and protected-leave status while the dispute proceeds. They also want an independent audit of Meta’s layoff-selection process, including the inputs, weights and outputs used to choose employees for termination, and an order requiring Meta to preserve related data, models and documents.

The lawsuit is not a class action. The complaint says Meta requires arbitration agreements that waive class-action participation, so the plaintiffs want to proceed individually in arbitration while asking the court to maintain the status quo.

This story draws on original reporting from Ars Technica.