A leaked audio recording from a July 2 employee meeting in California has intensified scrutiny of Meta's AI strategy after the company eliminated roughly 8,000 jobs. In the recording, Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that Meta's AI agent development over the previous four months "hasn't really accelerated in the way that we expected" and that the company's restructuring had not unfolded as smoothly as management envisioned, with several strategic initiatives "haven't come to fruition yet." Despite these setbacks, Zuckerberg attempted to reassure employees that the changes would still produce "meaningful benefits" within the next three to six months. The comments contrast with his message during Meta's workforce reduction in May, where he described AI as "the most consequential technology of our lifetimes." Meta expects capital expenditures of between $125 billion and $145 billion in 2026, more than double the approximately $72.2 billion spent the previous year, with most investment directed toward AI infrastructure, including an expanded agreement with CoreWeave valued at roughly $21 billion through 2032 and a partnership centered on a 6-gigawatt AMD GPU deployment.