Twenty-six former Meta employees have filed a lawsuit accusing the company of using AI-assisted systems and productivity data to select workers for layoffs, claiming the process unfairly affected employees with disabilities, medical leave, and other protected circumstances.
The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Oakland, California, challenges Meta’s decision to cut thousands of jobs earlier this year.
The plaintiffs are asking the court to temporarily stop the planned layoffs while they pursue their claims through private arbitration.
The employees were informed in May that their roles would end from July 22. They allege that Meta relied on internal systems that assessed employee performance, including productivity scores and measures linked to the use of AI tools.
According to the complaint, Meta used several internal tools to rank employees during the selection process. These included Metamate, the company’s large language model assistant, an employee-trained “second brain” system that analysed workplace communications and documents, and productivity scores based on data such as emails, browser activity, screen content and keystrokes.
The plaintiffs also claimed Meta tracked employees’ use of AI tools through token usage dashboards and that these measures placed workers who took medical, parental or disability leave at a disadvantage.
The lawsuit argues that Meta’s approach violated US laws protecting workers from discrimination, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.
The employees further alleged that Meta failed to properly test its AI systems for bias, which they said breached recently introduced AI-related regulations in California and New York City.
Meta has rejected the accusations. A company spokesperson said the allegations lacked merit and denied that AI systems made the layoff decisions.
“Workforce management and organisational decisions were and are made by people, not AI,” the spokesperson said.
Meta reduced its global workforce by about 10% in May, cutting nearly 8,000 jobs as part of a restructuring programme. The company has increased spending on artificial intelligence and has placed AI development at the centre of its future plans.
The lawsuit is among the first major legal challenges in the United States to question the role of AI in workforce reductions. The case could influence how companies use automated tools for employment decisions, particularly as businesses increasingly rely on data-driven systems to assess workers.
The plaintiffs, who filed the case anonymously, come from six states and Washington, DC. They argue that existing workplace protections should also apply when companies use AI systems to make decisions that affect employees’ careers.
