Meta is offering some individual contributors in its Applied AI division the option to return to management roles, four people familiar with the program told Business Insider. Created this year to train AI models, Applied AI includes workers moved into new AI-focused groups, including former managers who had been reassigned as individual contributors. The change partially reverses Meta’s yearlong effort to reduce middle-management layers and build smaller, flatter teams. The restructuring cut roughly 8,000 employees, or about one in 10 workers, while redirecting more than 7,000 others into AI-focused groups including Applied AI Engineering. Managers accounted for a disproportionate share of the cuts, according to a Business Insider analysis of public notices. Chief People Officer Janelle Gale said in a memo that Meta was moving toward teams that "can move faster and with more ownership." Meta has also allowed some employees to leave Applied AI after complaints about being involuntarily reassigned. The adjustment highlights the operational challenges of building advanced AI systems while maintaining a leaner organizational structure, and mirrors changes at other technology companies such as Uber.