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Meta is being sued by a group of current and former staff, who allege the company used AI tools that unfairly targeted some employees during major layoffs earlier this year.
The lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of California federal court, claimed that staff who took protected parental leave or required disability accommodations were disproportionately selected.
A spokesperson for Meta has hit back at the filing, insisting that workforce management decisions have been “made by people, not AI.”
Lawsuit questions Meta’s layoff approach
It follows a round of layoffs announced by Meta in May 2026, during which roughly 10% of its workforce were informed their jobs were being cut – described as a “mass reduction in force” (RIF).
26 unnamed current and former Meta staff – each of whom was selected and notified during the RIF – collectively filed the suit, with all 26 having taken approved statutory protected leave or received reasonable disability accommodations.
“Meta did not assemble the termination list through the considered judgment of managers who knew the work. Instead, Meta used a constellation of internal artificial-intelligence systems,” the complaint alleges.
This includes “a system referred to internally as “Metamate,” employee-trained “second-brain” agents, keystroke- and activity-monitoring data, AI-token-usage dashboards, and algorithmically assisted performance ranking and calibration.”
The plaintiffs argue that the tools used to score, rank, and select employees for inclusion on the RIF list were based on performance ratings and productivity metrics – alongside “AI-native” ratings and AI token consumption – that “by design, cannot be accumulated by an employee who is on protected medical or family leave, or whose output is reduced by a disability.”
Did Meta make necessary adjustments?
Meta is therefore accused of disproportionately selecting staff who took protected leave and requested disability accommodations.
In one example reference in the complaint, a scientist was informed that her job was being axed while on approved pre-birth pregnancy leave, just two days before she gave birth.
The tech giant “in effect penalized the employees for exercising their legal rights to these leaves,” the group alleges.
“An employee on twelve weeks of FMLA, CFRA, pregnancy-disability, or family leave during the measurement window cannot, by the system’s design, accumulate code commits, AI-token consumption, output volume, or “strategic alignment” signals at the rate of a continuously present peer,” the complaint suggests. “Meta did not adjust for this, did not exclude protected-leave time from any throughput metric, and did not flag protected-leave-takers or accommodation-seekers for individualized human review.”
Meta defends approach to layoffs
Meta is accused of violating the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and other state-protected leave laws.
A spokesperson for Meta, however, has defended the company’s approach: “These claims lack merit and are not based on facts. Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI.”
The plaintiffs are seeking a preliminary court ruling to halt their terminations and stop Meta from finalizing the layoffs, while also seeking back pay, compensation for lost equity and benefits, and other damages.
However, the group will be required to pursue their claims individually, as Meta staff must sign a mutual arbitration agreement that contains a class action waiver.
AI monitoring program questioned
It has been a tumultuous period for Meta, with executives admitting that the major restructuring has badly damaged morale.
Meanwhile, a monitoring program designed to capture employee behavior for the purposes of building and training AI tools has also attracted significant controversy – and has since been frozen amid privacy concerns.
The lawsuit also questions how the monitoring program was rolled out and its influence over the RIF process: “The program was announced through a low-visibility internal post—made by an engineer rather than a senior leader, in a secondary group rather than Meta’s official employee-notice channel—with little notice and no consent or click-through acknowledgment… and, at least initially, there was no way to opt out.”
Meta also reportedly required staff to train a personal AI agent (“second brain”) with employee communications and documents, and to integrate other internal AI tools into their workflows.
“These captured data are the inputs the RIF selection process uses,” the plaintiffs argue. “An employee on protected leave cannot generate them, and the absence of that data is recorded by the system as reduced performance.”
The court has been asked to greenlight an independent audit into the AI tools and systems in place at Meta.
Employers will be watching the progression of the case closely, with ongoing concerns over how AI-enabled tools are being used during HR and workforce processes, from hiring and performance reviews to downsizing.
