Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth told employees in early July that AI-driven efficiency gains should not be turned into more time off, saying the company should use the extra capacity to build more products for users instead. In an internal Q&A, he rejected the idea of equating productivity gains with longer breaks and told staff to keep pushing output.
The remarks matter because Meta workers were already asking whether AI improvements could bring back Meta Days, a supplemental holiday program the company had once offered. Bosworth’s answer was blunt: he called the idea of trading efficiency for more rest “stupid,” and said, “I want us to use the extra time to do more, cooler stuff for the people who use our products every day. Billions of people use our products every day. I get an extra hour, you know what I’m going to do with it? I’m going to put it into that.”
That exchange puts Bosworth at the center of a broader argument running through AI-driven workplaces: whether new tools should lighten the load or raise the bar. Meta had already replaced Meta Days with two Choice Days, while still giving employees four weeks of paid vacation per year on top of public holidays. The question raised on the call was not abstract for the staff who asked it. Three people who took part in the session said the employee pressed Bosworth on whether the company could reinstate the canceled benefit.
Bosworth did not leave the exchange there. After telling the employee, “stop asking about Meta Days, it’s stupid,” he later said he was sorry if he had been “too harsh” and said he sensed the question was partly tongue-in-cheek. That apology leaves the harder question unresolved: Meta has not said it will change its time-off policy, even as Bosworth made clear he expects AI gains to be spent on more work rather than more vacation.
The debate is already shaping how workers hear promises about AI. At Meta, Bosworth framed the technology as a way to accelerate output for a company serving billions, not as a path to more downtime. For employees, the message was plain. If AI creates more room in the day, Meta wants that room filled.
