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An internal document shows how much Meta is pushing employees to use AI

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Mark Zuckerberg wants Meta to be “AI-native.” An internal document shows one way the company’s CEO plans to get there.

The company has set goals for how much some employees should use AI tools for tasks such as coding.

Meta employees created a document to collect information about these goals from across different organizations, according to a copy seen by Business Insider. It includes goals set late last year and for 2026.

Tech companies are using various methods to motivate staff to use AI, such as tying AI use to performance reviews and gamifying AI use with competitive leaderboards.

The document states that Meta’s creation org, which is responsible for building and maintaining core creative experiences, set a goal for the first half of 2026 that 65% of engineers are expected to write more than 75% of their committed code using AI. Committed code is code that has been saved and tracked in a project.

Meta’s Scalable Machine Learning org, which focuses on AI models and infrastructure, had a goal for February 2026 to achieve 50% to 80% AI-assisted code, the document said. It cited a comment alongside this goal from a senior engineering manager that said: “We are not tracking this via metrics.”

The document also listed several companywide goals for Q4 2025 for central products — a horizontal org spanning Messenger, WhatsApp, Facebook, and other major products. One target is for 80% of mid to senior-level engineers to adopt AI tools such as DevMate, Metamate, and Google’s Gemini, with a note that the focus is on “tool adoption” rather than the percentage of code written by AI.

It said that 55% of code changes from software engineers across the central product orgs should be “Agent-Assisted.”

It is not clear whether the goals listed in the document are tied to performance reviews.

“It’s well-known that this is a priority and we’re focused on using AI to help employees with their day-to-day work,” a Meta spokesperson told Business Insider. They said that Meta’s performance program is focused on rewarding impact from AI tools, not just usage.

Here’s a breakdown of Meta’s goals in the memo:

(Note: Some technical terms have been rephrased for clarity)

Mark Zuckerberg’s AI odyssey

Zuckerberg is aggressively trying to make Meta what he has called an “AI-native” company. Meta has started tying employee performance to their AI usage, Business Insider reported last year, and staff are using Meta’s internal AI bot to write reviews for their peers.

More recently, the company rebranded some employees within a division of Reality Labs with one of three titles: “AI Builder,” “AI Pod Lead,” or “AI Org Lead.”

The change comes as Meta is adopting smaller teams and moving toward a flatter organizational structure.

“Our ultimate goal is to drive a step change in engineering productivity and product quality,” read a memo about the changes, which was reviewed by Business Insider. “To achieve this, we’re fundamentally rewiring how we operate, how we are structured, and how we support each other.”

Andrew Bosworth, Meta’s CTO, told staff on Tuesday that he would take charge of Meta’s “AI for Work” initiative, which is designed to boost the company’s internal adoption of AI tools, according to a memo reviewed by Business Insider and first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Meta laid off several hundred employees across Reality Labs and other orgs this week.

Have something to share? Contact this reporter via email at hlangley@businessinsider.com or Signal at 628-228-1836. Use a personal email address and a non-work device; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.




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Russia says the US is pushing its companies out of Venezuela’s energy sector

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Russia said the United States is pushing Russian companies out of Venezuela’s energy sector.

“Right now, following Venezuela and what is happening there, our companies are quite openly being pushed out of Venezuela,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with RT, a state-linked media network.

The US launched a military operation in early January that resulted in the capture of then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

In the interview published on Thursday, Lavrov linked the US’s pressure on Russian companies to broader efforts to curb Moscow’s role in global oil markets.

Lavrov cited recent sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil, as well as tariffs and restrictions on countries purchasing Russian oil, including India.

“Everywhere it is being said that Russian oil and Russian gas will be replaced by American oil and American liquefied natural gas,” Lavrov said.

Russia’s investments in Venezuela at risk

Russia now faces the prospect of significant financial losses in Venezuela following the US operation, which has upended decades of strategic cooperation between Moscow and Caracas spanning energy, defense, and diplomacy.

Energy ties played a central role, reflecting the importance of the oil sector to Russia’s economy.

A former US ambassador-at-large for the former Soviet Union warned last month that Russia’s exposure in Venezuela could translate into concrete losses.

“Russian investments in Venezuela’s oil industry over the last twenty years will now have to be, formally or informally, written off,” wrote Stephen Sestanovich, the George F. Kennan senior fellow for Russian and Eurasian studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Loans for Venezuela’s purchase of Russian weapons could meet the same fate, while trade between the two countries could also come to a halt, Sestanovich added.

That would come at a sensitive moment for Russia’s economy.

As the war in Ukraine approaches its fifth year, sweeping Western sanctions and lower oil prices are weighing on budget revenues that fund President Vladimir Putin’s war chest. In January, Russia’s oil revenue plunged to its lowest level in over five years.

At least one Russian state-owned oil company has moved to ringfence its exposure. Last month, Roszarubezhneft said that all of its Venezuelan assets are owned by the Russian state.




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ICE’s Minnesota surge is pushing small businesses to abandon business as usual

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A second fatal shooting by federal officers in Minneapolis on Saturday has further inflamed tensions in the city.

Immigration agents, in full view of filming protesters, tackled a 37-year-old man to the ground before one shot him multiple times. City officials said in a press conference on Saturday that the man, who they believed to be a US citizen, had died at the scene.

The shooting occurred as thousands of protesters converged in downtown Minneapolis to rally against the Department of Homeland Security’s Operation Metro Surge, which has flooded Minnesota with ICE agents since December. Tensions have been high since officer Jonathan Ross fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Good on January 7.

Caught in the middle of all this are the city’s small businesses, which are typically grappling with a quiet January.

Dan Marshall, the owner of Mischief Toys in neighboring St. Paul, said he usually spends the month cleaning up after Christmas, painting the walls, and doing his taxes.

This year, though, “that’s not what we’re being called to do,” he said. Marshall co-owns the toy and game store with his wife and daughter.

Instead, he said the store has distributed about 4,000 3D printed whistles, which Minnesotans have been using as an alert and protest system against ICE. Marshall said that the store has also served as a space for the community to come in, relax, and process what they’ve been seeing.

“Retail feels totally different right now,” Marshall said. “It feels like a way of connecting with our community that we haven’t really felt before. It’s very raw.”

For small business owners in Minnesota, it’s been an eventful — and not necessarily lucrative — January, as they instead turn their attention to supporting their communities.

Many businesses are also opting into a possible income hit on January 23, when unions and faith leaders are calling for a suspension of work, school, and shopping to protest ICE’s actions. Local news site Bring Me The News compiled a growing list of over 200 local establishments’ social media posts about their plans to participate in the economic blackout day. Some have said they plan to donate that day’s revenue; others are shuttering completely or opening as a free community space.

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a January 20 press release, “Since President Trump took office, DHS has arrested over 10,000 criminal illegal aliens in Minnesota, and we are NOT slowing down. Our law enforcement officers are saving countless American lives.” ICE did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

In a statement, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said that the Trump administration’s immigration operations “have resulted in countless dangerous criminal illegals being removed from the streets.”

“Making American communities safer will create an environment in which all businesses can thrive in the long term and their customers can feel safe,” Jackson said.

Catzen Coffee, a specialty coffee shop with an attached cat lounge, will not be doing business on Friday, but plans to open for those who need a space to hang out — free coffee and cat cuddles included.

Catzen owner Vanessa Beardsley said that the irony of being a business owner and opting out of business for a day never crossed her mind; not making revenue was never part of the calculus.

“We’ve got to do what we can do right now,” Beardsley said.

A topsy-turvy January

“January always sucks,” Matt Cole, the owner of Oh Yeah! Cookie Company, said. “As a business owner, especially in retail business, people spend a lot of money in December and November, and they usually don’t spend a lot of money in January. So January is always a month that’s hurting — and now it’s really hurting.”

National Retail Federation’s spending data shows an average drop in retail sales of 17.3% from December to January over the last five years. January through March has also typically seen the lowest average monthly employment for small businesses across the past few years. An analysis from consumer research firm Consumer Edge of credit and debit card data found that spending in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area by households earning under $100,000 has tracked lower than the national average over the four weeks ending January 10.

This year, Cole estimates he’s donated around $300 worth of cookies to groups distributing treats to kids who can’t go to school amid ICE’s presence. He said that if he does make any money right now, he’ll donate 10% of his sales. The full-time role he works in addition to his homemade baking business has been keeping him afloat.

Cole isn’t the only one pivoting from normal business.

JP Pritchett, the owner of adult store Smitten Kitten in Minneapolis, said that they usually devote January to ramping up for Valentine’s Day, which they described as the “Super Bowl” for adult stores.

“Typically in January, we’re ramping up inventory, getting the store stocked, just getting ready to do commerce,” Pritchett said. “But this year, I don’t care about that. Nobody cares about that.”

Instead, Pritchett said, “We stopped all regular business and created a free store inside Smitten Kitten where people could come get food or send a trusted friend or neighbor to come get food, toiletries, lots of diapers, formula, baby wipes — all the things that are really important to sustain life if you’re in hiding.”

Marshall, the owner of Mischief Toys, said that after promoting the store’s whistle distribution, he received a notice from ICE requesting verification of his workers’ employment eligibility. He said that shuttering on the 23rd sends a message “that our community is much more important than our bottom line,” which he believes is a positive.

“We’d like to sell toys,” Marshall said, adding that he’d prefer to spend January cleaning and painting “because it’s so damn cold here,” but with heightened tensions in the city, “we’re going to step up as much as we can.”




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