“Workforce management and organisational decisions were and are made by people, not AI,” the spokesperson said. The lawsuit appears to be the first against a major U.S. company to challenge the alleged use of AI in conducting layoffs.

Meta laid off 10% of its global workforce in ⁠May, or nearly 8,000 people, ⁠and was planning more job cuts later this year, Reuters had reported. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has since said that he does not ⁠expect any more company-wide ‌layoffs this year. The changes are part of a far-reaching overhaul ​as the company increases its AI investments and centres AI ‌agents in both its product offerings and its approach to work internally.

The 26 plaintiffs, who filed the lawsuit anonymously, are accusing Meta of violating federal and ‌state laws that ban discrimination ​or retaliation against ​workers who ​have disabilities, take medical leave or are pregnant. They also claim that Meta failed to test its AI systems for bias in violation of ​recently adopted California and New York City laws. The plaintiffs ⁠come from six states, including California and New York, and the District of Columbia.

According to the complaint, Meta used a number of internal AI-assisted systems to score and rank employees on ‌a termination list. ⁠Those included “Metamate,” a large language model assistant; an employee-trained “second brain” that tracked workers’ communications and documents; and a productivity score drawn from scanning keystrokes, screen ​content, emails and browser history, according to the lawsuit.