Meta Pushes Its New AI Agent on Employees, but Eases Off on Tokenmaxxing

Meta has ended an incentive program that tied employee performance evaluations to how much they used AI tools, removing pressure on workers to maximize their AI usage in ways that sometimes seemed frivolous. The company is now encouraging employees to test a new advanced AI agent called Hatch while grading them instead on their actual work contributions rather than their AI adoption metrics. This shift comes after some employees faced layoffs in part due to low AI usage scores, which prompted a lawsuit alleging discrimination against workers on health and family leaves who couldn't accumulate usage. While Meta claims it is refocusing on impact rather than usage, employees report that Hatch still consumes significant computing resources, and some worry the tool's productivity gains could lead to additional job cuts.