Twenty-six former Meta employees filed a lawsuit claiming the company used biased AI systems to select workers for layoffs in May 2026. The suit alleges the tools disproportionately targeted employees who took protected medical or family leave.
The complaint, filed in US District Court for the Northern District of California, states that Meta deployed tools including an internal AI assistant called Metamate, keystroke-monitoring data, and AI-token usage dashboards to rank employees.
Plaintiffs say the systems penalized those on leave because they could not generate the same output metrics or AI adoption scores. One employee was reportedly selected for termination the day before giving birth.
Meta responded that all layoff decisions involved human input. The company said workforce management decisions were made by people, not AI.
The plaintiffs seek an injunction to pause the layoffs, scheduled to begin July 22, until an independent audit can review the selection process. The case will proceed through individual arbitration rather than as a class action.
