Meta Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pictured at the U.S. Capitol after a meeting in the office of Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R.S.D., on March 26, 2026.
Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call Inc. | Getty Images
Collaboration between current and former employees meta Employees have accused the social media giant of using artificial intelligence in a discriminatory manner in recent layoffs.
In the lawsuit filed Monday, the plaintiffs allege that Meta violated various protected leave laws and discrimination practices related to pregnancy and disability, among other conditions, and said they would like to pursue their claims individually in arbitration.
Lawyers representing 26 unnamed employees said in a complaint filed in the Northern District of California that the plaintiffs were among the 10% of Meta’s employees cut in May’s round of layoffs.
The plaintiffs allege that Meta’s “series of in-house artificial intelligence systems” did not take authorized absences into account when deciding which employees to cut.
“These tools utilize inputs such as performance reviews, adjustment scores, productivity and output metrics, ‘AI native’ ratings, and consumption of AI tokens, which by design cannot be accumulated by employees on protected medical or family leave, or whose production is reduced due to a disability,” the lawyers wrote in the filing.
The lawsuit accuses Meta of using metrics such as token consumption, which is a proxy for general AI usage, in a way that targets specific employees.
Courthouse News Service earlier reported the lawsuit.
“The claims are unsubstantiated and not based in fact,” a Mehta spokesperson told CNBC in an email.
“Employee management and organizational decisions have been and continue to be made by humans, not AI,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.
The lawsuit highlights growing concerns about the impact of AI on jobs and the disabled workforce.
The plaintiffs are asking the court to issue a “preliminary injunction to maintain the employment status quo” at Meta “pending an independent audit of the algorithm-assisted selection process and resolution of the merits of the claims in arbitration.”
The lawsuit comes nearly a month after a federal judge in California ruled against the tech company. working day In another employee-related case regarding the use of AI in employment decisions. In that case, a judge ruled that Workday must sue over its use of an AI-powered job screening service, alleging that it violates state and federal laws regarding employee discrimination.
Workday denied the allegations and said in a statement at the time that its AI recruiting software did not make hiring decisions “in California or elsewhere.”
“Our technology only considers job qualifications, not protected characteristics such as race, age or disability,” Workday said in a statement. “We rigorously test our products as part of our Responsible AI Program to ensure our tools do not harm protected groups.”
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