Meta previously announced it will cut 10% of its staff next month.
Meta's HR chief told staff in a meeting that she can't promise further layoffs won't happen.
She added that the business is strong and acknowledged that morale has been affected at Meta.
Meta plans to lay off around 10% of its staff next month, and it told staff it's not ruling out deeper cuts.
That's what Janelle Gale, Meta's chief people officer, told employees in an internal meeting on Thursday, according to three sources on the call.
"Will there be more layoffs? The question always comes up. I'd love to say that there are no more layoffs, but I can't say something we can't deliver," Gale said during the meeting. "While the business is strong, priorities change, competition is fierce, and we will continue to manage our costs responsibly."
She said this means that Meta will "continue to evolve teams as needed" and "try to redeploy talent." She pointed to how Meta is investing in its Applied AI organization.
Gale added that some organizations would be more affected by layoffs than others, though she did not specify which.
Meta leaders also said during the meeting that AI token usage would not be considered as a factor for the layoffs.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also addressed the layoffs at the meeting, saying that AI automation is not the driving factor behind them. He said that AI has made small teams far more efficient.
During the call, Zuckerberg also addressed Meta's plan to monitor employees' keystrokes and mouse movements to improve its AI models. He said humans are not actually watching what the staff are doing and that this data is abstracted and used to improve AI.
Meta AI Chief Alexandr Wang also appeared at the meeting, sporting a camouflage-pattern T-shirt featuring multiple deer, according to a photo seen by Business Insider. During the Q&A, he praised Meta's latest AI prowess, notably the recent release of its Spark model.
Meta declined to comment for this article.
Reuters reported in March that Meta plans to cut about 20% of its total staff this year.
Given the looming layoffs, Gale said at the meeting that they hit morale at Meta, and the company tries to make tough situations like that "the best version possible." She added that Meta has tripled COBRA healthcare coverage to 18 months.
Meta CFO Susan Li previously said during its first quarter earnings call on Wednesday that she "doesn't really know" the ideal size of the company's head count, which runs at above 77,000. Meta announced that its infrastructure spend, largely for AI, is doubling this year, to a range of $125 billion to $145 billion.
Jimmy Donaldson, a.k.a. MrBeast, is best known for high-production spectacles like "Beast Games."
Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Prime Video
MrBeast's next growth act may come from AI-produced videos.
Jimmy Donaldson's company is looking for someone to lead a production team with AI at the foundation.
MrBeast has been expanding his company while looking for ways to save.
YouTube's biggest star, MrBeast, is looking for a leader to help his company create "AI-native" productions.
A job posting says that Beast Industries wants to build a new production capability in which AI is "not a tool but the foundation."
It calls for someone who can help define "what AI-native entertainment looks like, develop original formats, and build systems that enable content to be conceived, produced, and scaled with AI at the core."
MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, wouldn't be the first creator to delve into AI. Fellow superstar creator Steven Bartlett has been making fully AI-animated shows since last year.
Still, as YouTube's top creator with 479 million subscribers, Donaldson's moves in the space will be closely watched by the entertainment community.
Many production studios are adopting AI across production, marketing, and visual effects, and startups are raising millions on the promise of helping legacy Hollywood transition to the AI era.
So far, entirely AI productions are largely the realm of animation, podcasts, and short-form video.
In the micro drama space, apps including TikTok's Pine Drama and Vigloo have character-driven dramas generated by AI. These AI dramas account for 10% of Vigloo's library, a spokesperson said. The Beijing-based startup StoReel recently raised $34 million to make AI micro dramas.
AI-driven productions would solve some problems for Donaldson.
He is famous for his viral, high-budget challenge and giveaway videos, though the company has been tightening up spending. One of the job's listed expectations is to use automation to make more content, faster.
Making AI-driven videos also directly addresses the risk any creator faces when they build a company that relies on their time and persona. As Donaldson expands his company to consumer products and services, it limits his bandwidth to star in his own videos. He recently hired former NBCU unscripted executive Corie Henson to head his studio division and is looking to broaden the company's video franchises. He said this week his company now has 750 employees.
Donaldson himself has shared concerns about AI's risk to his industry.
After OpenAI released Sora 2 last fall, Donaldson mused on X about what AI's advancement will mean for creators, adding, "Scary times."
He also released — and then removed — a tool that used AI to generate video thumbnails last year, after receiving backlash from creators.
Meta told staff on Thursday that it planned to eliminate 10% of its workforce.
Inside the company, employees are bracing for weeks of limbo as they wait to find out who will be cut.
Meta employees responded internally with a mixture of questions, concerns, and jokes.
Welcome to "28 days of hell."
That's how one Meta employee characterized the tech giant's announcement that thousands of jobs will be cut on May 20. Employees flooded internal forums with similar posts, many of which were filled with anxiety, dark humor, and questions as they wait to learn who will be out of a job.
"How are you motivating yourself to work for the next 1 month with layoffs confirmed?" one person posted on the anonymous workplace app Blind, in a section just for Meta employees.
Someone else replied, "I'm motivating myself to do stuff that I can put on my resume for my next job lol."
In a memo sent to staff on Thursday, Meta said it shared some layoff details earlier than usual because the news had already leaked. The company plans to cut around 10% of employees next month and close 6,000 open roles.
"I know this leaves everyone with nearly a month of ambiguity, which is incredibly unsettling," wrote Meta's chief people officer Janelle Gale.
For some Meta employees, the fact that company leadership acknowledged layoffs brought some relief. The layoffs had been so widely discussed internally that the announcement helped ease some uncertainty, according to one employee who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
One of the top comments under Gale's internal Meta post was a picture of an elephant, a reference to leadership addressing the elephant in the room. Reuters first reported Meta was planning sweeping layoffs in March, and employees have been speculating on the extent of the cuts in the weeks since.
"elephant addressed!" commented another employee. Another posted a picture of an envelope that read: "Addressed to: "ELEPHANT."
Others said that having to wait almost a month to find out who would be affected created anxiety. One person posted that this was their first week at the company. "It might be goodbye for me," they wrote.
Another employee told Business Insider that the announcement added pressure for them to deliver results over the next month because it's unknown which teams will be affected by the cuts.
"I'm a little stressed about making impact in the next month," they said.
Despite a sense of added pressure, it's not the employee's first go-around with cuts at the company. The worker said they're going to continue working as usual, assuming the worst while trying to make the most of the next month as they wait for further updates.
"I assume I'm always two months away from being laid off, no matter what leadership says, so I'm going to continue to operate as usual," the employee said.
Employees also commented on Gale's internal post with questions.
One person asked if Meta staff would receive their August 15 stock payouts, which are part of some employees' compensation packages. Gale said that impacted employees would have a termination date prior to the August vest and would therefore not receive it.
"Because of the timing of the notifications, we will have just had the May 15 vest. There are some instances, based on work location, where people will remain employed through the August 15 vest," Gale wrote. Another employee thanked Gale for the clarification.
Another employee asked if travel would be restricted the week of May 20. "We are not restricting travel company-wide. VPs will share team-specific guidance," Gale responded.
'I feel more anxious about surviving'
On the Meta employee section of Blind, some users asked why Meta couldn't offer voluntary buyouts. Microsoft on Thursday offered one-time early retirement buyouts to thousands of its long-time employees, and Google has extended the same offers to staff across some orgs.
Many posts were from users asking others for information about which groups might be affected.
In a longer post, one user said the downside might be surviving the cuts.
"I feel more anxious about surviving this layoff," they wrote, recalling several rounds of layoffs at the company since 2022.
"Because we all know it's just gonna get worse for those of us who are left behind and have to absorb even more work, amongst other declining factors in this sad fearful company," they wrote.
The latest example is Tommy Harper, a prolific film producer whose credits include "Star Wars" and "Top Gun: Maverick."
Harper is going small for his next act. He's launching VeYou, an app for the made-for-mobile soaps that originated in Asia and have taken off among women viewers.
Harper raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding for VeYou from lead investor S32, a venture firm led by Google Ventures founder Bill Maris, whose other investments have included 23andMe, Impossible Foods, and Nest.
Harper wants to make VeYou the 'HBO' of micro dramas
Micro dramas — also called verticals and mini dramas — are known for being low-budget productions with wild plotlines.
Newer entrants like Harper are trying to evolve the format, using AI-driven special effects to lend a cinematic feel.
VeYou plans to offer action, romance, and drama titles, both licensed and originals made by Harper's own studio, Tiny Verticals. The first original will be "Love Under Fire," an action romance starring vertical drama star Kasey Esser, who wrote the series alongside Harper.
"We're going to ramp up the quality level and the storytelling," Harper said. "We're going to be your HBO in the space."
VeYou has secured distribution on Google TV and Google Play, with distribution on Apple's iOS to follow. It'll also use marketing channels like TikTok and Meta's platforms to attract audiences.
VeYou is adopting the low-cost, viewer-pay model common in the vertical space. The series will cost $100,000 to $250,000 to make. Harper said licensed series will cost viewers $4.99 apiece and originals will be $10.99. Other payment options and advertising will follow.
How VeYou plans to compete
Harper is aware of the challenges facing micro dramas. They cost a fraction of a traditional feature-length movie, but often lose money because of the high cost of marketing. VeYou is a startup without massive financial backing.
"I'm competing with the big Chinese companies that are throwing tons of money at this, so we have to be very, very strategic, and we have to make things that are good quality," he said.
Harper plans to work with people with large social followings to help market VeYou. He's also in talks with brands to fund verticals and help market them in exchange for product placement.
Other Hollywood players have delved into micro dramas, which streaming consulting firm Owl & Co. estimates generated $1.4 billion in the US in 2025. Fox Entertainment invested in Holywater, a Ukrainian company behind the micro drama app My Drama, while Disney gave micro drama app DramaBox a spot in its accelerator program.
Harper sees micro dramas as a chance for more Hollywood jobs
Harper said he was excited about verticals' ability to test concepts that could turn into TV shows or films, while helping employ talent as traditional Hollywood work becomes scarcer.
"It is extremely hard for young talent to get involved in TV and film right now," he said. "And this is a place for them to do it."
Harper knows some in Hollywood look down on micro dramas. He said he got similar reactions when he started working in TV. He believes attitudes will change as new players get involved.
"I had people call me going, 'I don't understand why you're doing television. You know, you do big movies,'" he recalled. "I know we have to make better stories on this platform. That's what we're going to do."
Here are select slides from the pitch deck Harper used to raise his seed round, shared exclusively with Business Insider:
VeYou wants to elevate the micro drama format.
VeYou
Its pitch deck lays out the opportunity.
VeYou
VeYou says micro dramas are poised to become a $26 billion industry globally by 2030.
VeYou says micro dramas have an image problem.
VeYou
The slide reads:
The format works, but the stories don't fit the culture.
Dramatic storytelling drives compulsive spending — but 57% of viewers say there's too much violence.
The content carries a real stigma and social sharing is low because of that.
VeYou wants to expand the format's appeal.
VeYou
Founder Tommy Harper has had a successful career in Hollywood.
VeYou
The slide calls Harper one of Hollywood's highest-grossing producers, with films that have made more than $4 billion at the global box office and include some of the industry's biggest franchises.
VeYou plans to use AI to improve its series.
VeYou
This slide lays out the VeYou formula:
Premium content at scale: Made for a global audience with our network of production partners. Licensed series, dedicated studio & producer partners, and originals with AI-assisted production
Discovery: Free episodes get fans invested Existing fan communities, talent & social media, Google TV + app store feature + distribution deals
Watch & binge: Episodic: Unlock · Share
AI learns: Scene analytics inform marketing, UX & greenlight decisions
Franchise IP: Expansion for breakout properties — films, TV & books
Meta has set goals for some employees on how much they should use AI.
They include targets for using AI code assistants, agents, and other tools.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said he wants the company to be "AI-native."
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.
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:
Companywide Q4 2025 Goals (Central Products)
55% of software engineers' code changes should be agent-assisted.
80% of mid to senior-level engineers should adopt general AI tools.
Scalable ML Team Goal (Feb 2026)
Target: 50% to 80% AI-assisted code.
Creation Org H1 2026
65% of engineers should write more than 75% of their committed code using AI.
(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.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. The bank recently rolled out new objectives for its software engineers to boost productivity and coding quality using AI.
Bloomberg/Getty Images
JPMorgan software developers say the bank is raising its expectations for AI use.
Internal company communications reveal the bank's new AI targets.
The updated objectives affect members of its global developer workforce.
JPMorgan Chase's message to its global armada of software developers is clear: embrace AI or risk falling behind.
Internal company documents seen by Business Insider and posted to JPMorgan's intranet for employees lay out a series of new expectations for the bank's software engineering workforce, who comprise the majority of its 65,000-person-strong Global Technology division. The newly listed objectives, published on the intranet earlier this month, say all software and security engineers are expected to "drive excellence" by adopting AI and "contributing to initiatives that improve productivity, speed, scalability, and impact."
One document authored by the bank's human resources leaders laid out two core objectives for software engineers: step up their coding game, and start harnessing AI to save time and get more done. The new language about objectives "will be added automatically and will appear by the end of March," an image of the document on the intranet showed — a reference to upcoming changes to employees' goals expected to take effect at the end of this month. The firm also instructed workers to develop clear goals with their managers that align with the bank's new objectives.
"Demonstrate measurable improvement in code quality, speed and productivity through regular use of approved AI coding assist tools, contributing to the team's overall efficiency targets," read one goal written by HR. "Engage in identifying, implementing and optimizing AI-driven automation opportunities within technology lifecycle management (TLM) processes to drive efficiency and support capacity unlock initiatives, ensuring all enhancements leverage current technology assets before considering new solutions."
A spokeswoman for JPMorgan declined to comment.
JPMorgan is among Wall Street's biggest spenders on technology and artificial intelligence, with projected tech investments reaching roughly $20 billion in 2026 — far exceeding peers like Goldman Sachs. Across corporate America, companies including Meta and Google have begun pushing employees to adopt AI tools and, in some cases, evaluating their use.
Business Insider spoke to five engineers across the bank who said the push to adopt AI has been felt far and wide — in managerial conversations, in intranet posts, and through dashboards that display who's using certain AI tools, and who's not. They added that discussions about productivity and AI adoption have become more frequent in recent weeks. It all comes as developers get ready for a pilot of Anthropic's Claude Code to be rolled out as soon as April, said a longtime IT developer in the Global Technology group. Claude Code would be made available alongside the four other large language models coders are already using: two from OpenAI's ChatGPT, and two from Anthropic's Claude.
'Anxiety' among developers
The developers Business Insider spoke to said they've been encouraged to use AI tools for a wide range of tasks, from writing code to preparing presentations. One dashboard that tracked adoption and usage of the bank's GitHub Copilot appeared to show details as granular as which employees had installed it and identified individuals as "light," "heavy," or "non" users.
For some, the message has added pressure inside a firm that has drawn scrutiny in recent years for its use of internal monitoring tools and performance tracking. Business Insider published a series of reports on the firm's Workforce Activity Data Utility in 2022, a program that collected data points about how employees were spending their day — from the length of video calls to how long they spent drafting emails to where they were sitting in the office.
"There's a lot of anxiety in the environment right now," the longtime IT developer said. Those who don't use AI risk being seen as underperforming, the developer said. Another developer said their manager said in a recent meeting that availability of the new AI tools comes with an "expectation" that velocity and output should show "a noticeable increase" quarter over quarter.
Three of the five developers Business Insider spoke to said the tools are helpful, despite discomfort over the tracking.
New performance dimensions
The updated guidance on AI use comes as the bank implements other adjustments to how it ranks workers' success on the job. Going forward, the bank said on the intranet portal, it's streamlining some of the primary "dimensions" it uses to grade employees, pivoting to using two categories: "what you achieve" — business outcomes — and "how you achieve it," including adherence to the firm's behavioral principles.
According to screenshots from the bank's intranet, JPMorgan will segment workers into three buckets: "stand out" for those who exceed job standards, "achiever" for the majority of employees, and "needs improvement" for those who require "additional support" and have struggled to perform consistently.
Another page Business Insider reviewed listed skills non-managers working in software engineering were expected to display across "all performance dimensions." One is "Data Fluency," noting that the skill is applied by those who develop and drive "adoption of new tools or methodologies to leverage data in the flow of work." "Rate of adoption" is cited as one measurement of the employee's impact toward exhibiting the skill in practice.
The documents from the JPMorgan intranet echo the firm's long-standing culture of internal monitoring and data collection, making clear that continuous performance tracking is vital for keeping workers on target throughout the year.
"You and your manager will use your objectives to track your progress during the year, recognize impact, and streamline your annual review," the firm wrote on an internal page tied to goals.
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A large division within Meta Reality Labs is undergoing an overhaul to become fully "AI-native."
The unit is now organized into "pods" made up of "AI builders" and "AI pod leads."
This new push and the latest layoffs at Reality Labs are unrelated, Meta said.
Meta is rebranding some employees as "AI builders" and organizing them into AI-native "pods," according to a leaked memo obtained by Business Insider.
The memo described an overhaul of roles, titles, and team structures across a 1,000-employee team within Meta's Reality Labs. It's part of a broader, aggressive push by Meta to adopt small teams and use AI.
The pilot program was announced last month within the Reality Labs team that builds developer tools. Everyone in the division will now have one of three titles: AI Builder, AI Pod Lead, or AI Org Lead. That's to encourage a shift toward a flatter organization, a structure that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has advocated.
"Our ultimate goal is to drive a step change in engineering productivity and product quality," the memo reads. "To achieve this, we're fundamentally rewiring how we operate, how we are structured, and how we support each other."
When asked for comment, Meta referred Business Insider to comments earlier this year from Zuckerberg that 2026 is the year AI will begin to "dramatically change the way we work," with projects that once required large teams potentially handled by one, "very talented" person.
According to the memo, each pod consists of a small group of AI builders focused on specific outcomes, often working across disciplines. For example, engineers could take on design work, depending on the task. Some Meta employees have already begun referring to themselves as AI builders on LinkedIn, Business Insider previously reported.
These pods are led by Pod Leads, who oversee day-to-day operations. They are, in turn, overseen by Org Leads, who also manage performance reviews and oversee promotions — processes that will be supported by unspecified "AI systems."
The memo said that the overall team size will remain the same under the new structure.
Meta laid off hundreds of staff on Wednesday, and this cut affected staff in Reality Labs, among other teams. A Meta spokesperson said the reorganization is not related to the cuts.
Illustration by Samuel Boivin/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Another xAI cofounder, Manuel Kroiss, has told people he is leaving Elon Musk's company.
Just one cofounder out of 11 remains besides Musk.
The company has been in flux ahead of a widely anticipated IPO at SpaceX, which recently acquired xAI.
And then there was one.
XAI cofounder Manuel Kroiss has told people he is leaving the company, according to insiders with knowledge of his exit.
Kroiss, who is also known as "Makro," is one of 11 engineers who helped launch the company alongside Elon Musk in 2023. With his exit, the number of cofounder departures now sits at 10.
Guodong Zhang, Zihang Dai, Toby Pohlen, Jimmy Ba, Tony Wu, and Greg Yang have all stepped away since January.
XAI and Kroiss did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Kroiss led pretraining, which helps train the company's AI models on large datasets, and reported directly to Musk. He also worked on improving xAI's coding models alongside Zhang, who left earlier in March. Musk said at the Abundance Summit earlier this month that xAI is "behind in coding," but the company is working to "exceed our competitors on coding."
Before joining xAI, Kroiss worked at Google and DeepMind.
Ross Nordeen, who came to xAI from Tesla, is the only remaining cofounder aside from Musk.
The company's organizational structure has been in flux over the past few weeks, according to people with knowledge of the changes. Musk has taken over managing dozens of direct reports and has brought in workers from Tesla and SpaceX. It has also shed dozens of employees, the people said.
Earlier this month, Musk said on X that "xAI was not built right first time around, so is being rebuilt from the foundations up."
He has also said that the company is resifting through old xAI candidates to bring in new people.
"Many talented people over the past few years were declined an offer or even an interview @xAI," Musk wrote on X.
Musk's rocket company, SpaceX, acquired xAI earlier this year. The company is expected to file an initial public offering this year, which could value it at $1.5 trillion.
Jessica Christian/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
Salesforce is skipping raises for director-level and above employees this year, according to an internal memo.
The company said it is increasing stock and bonus pools for its "highest performing individuals."
Employees will find out about their pay during reviews, which start at the end of this month.
Salesforce isn't offering raises this year to employees at the director level and above, according to an internal email viewed by Business Insider.
"We have decided to focus merit increases at the Senior Manager level (grade 8) and below," states the email, sent by the company's human-resources team.
Instead of giving raises, the company said it is increasing stock and bonus pools for its "highest performing individuals" among upper-level employees, calling it part of an "investment in performance and long-term growth."
Employees will learn about their compensation during performance reviews, which begin at the end of March.
Salesforce's decision could reflect a broader shift in how Big Tech is paying senior talent. Instead of increasing base pay, some companies are increasingly tying compensation to stock performance and equity, preserving cash while still incentivizing top leaders. Meta just announced this week that it created a lucrative incentive system for stock for a number of its C-suite executives.
Salesforce stock is down about 37% over the past year. CEO Marc Benioff recently downplayed fears about AI's threat to software-as-a-service companies. Those fears have prompted recent sell-offs of software stocks.
The email stated that 10% more directors and senior directors are getting stock grants, that the average stock grant increased, and that 80% of directors and senior directors who received "highly successful" or "exceptional" performance ratings received a 20% to 40% bigger grant.
The pool for bonuses "is funded at 103%," the email stated. Most eligible directors and senior directors received 100% or more of their bonus, and all of the directors and senior directors who received the top performance ratings got 115% to 140% of their bonuses.
The e-commerce giant is testing a new delivery system that breaks the day into 10 distinct windows spanning 24 hours, according to internal documents obtained by Business Insider.
That's a meaningful expansion from Amazon's traditional delivery hours, which typically run from 6 am to 10 pm. The new structure effectively turns delivery into a rolling, all-day cycle, with faster options carrying premium fees.
The initiative, led by Udit Madan, Amazon SVP of worldwide operations, began as a pilot program with plans to potentially expand across the network later this year, according to the documents.
Selling speed
If successful, it would mark one of the most significant changes to Amazon's delivery model in years, shifting the company from offering fast shipping as a default to selling speed as a premium product.
As part of the effort, Amazon has explored charging extra fees for fast delivery options, including 45-minute and 2.5-hour services, according to the documents.
By expanding delivery hours and introducing paid upgrades for faster service, Amazon is trying to turn the final and most expensive stretch of its logistics network into a new source of profit.
According to internal projections, Amazon projects the new delivery fees and higher sales volume will ultimately make faster shipping a meaningful profit driver, even as it expects hundreds of millions of dollars in near-term costs.
"Explore avenues to monetize (charge ship-fee) on the last 1-hr of delivery," one of the documents stated.
Starting as a small pilot
An Amazon spokesperson told Business Insider the company is conducting a "small pilot in a few US locations" to test a new delivery structure that will "introduce shorter delivery windows" and provide customers with "more frequent delivery options throughout the day."
Amazon has not decided on the future rollout of the new program and is evaluating customer response before deciding whether to expand it more broadly, the spokesperson added.
This is unrelated to last week's launch of 1-hour and 3-hour delivery options, the spokesperson also said. That built on a limited 30-minute ultrafast service introduced last year.
"We are always innovating on behalf of customers and continue to find new ways of offering them lower prices, greater selection, and more convenience," the spokesperson said in an email statement.
Slicing up a day
Under the new system, Amazon divides the day into named, overlapping windows, each roughly three hours long.
The windows span early-morning slots like 3 am to 6 am through evening and overnight periods such as 8 pm to 11 pm and 11 pm to 4 am, each with internal codenames ranging from "Sunrise" and "Coffee" to "Nightowl."
The new system also gives Amazon tighter control over how delivery options are presented.
According to the documents, Amazon wants to show customers specific arrival times, making delivery feel precise and predictable, not just fast. For example, it wants to say the package "arrives in 45 minutes," instead of a window range, the documents showed.
The Amazon spokesperson said the company already provides delivery estimates like "arrive by," and, in some cases, more precise timing as it continues to improve accuracy over time. Amazon is not moving to "exact, minute-by-minute scheduling," the spokesperson added.
Amazon believes a steady, deliberate rollout of the new delivery service will help it better learn and measure the impact before expanding across the full network, according to one of the documents.
Speed is expensive
The plan to charge for faster delivery marks a broader shift for Amazon. For years, the company bundled new perks into Prime at no extra cost. Now it's increasingly charging for premium features, from ad-free Prime Video and Whole Foods deliveries to services like One Medical.
For the faster delivery fee, Amazon benchmarked similar services from Walmart, Instacart, DoorDash, and UberEats, one of the documents showed.
The Amazon spokesperson said this is not a shift away from "fast, free delivery" or "a change in approach." The Prime membership continues to offer "significant value, including fast, free delivery on millions of items, alongside optional faster delivery options in some cases," the spokesperson added.
The push for all-day delivery and speed, however, comes at a cost.
One estimate, based on expanding the service to all sites by July, projects more than $330 million in costs this year and over $780 million next year. A slower rollout, reaching full scale by September 2026, would bring next year's costs closer to $490 million, according to the documents.
At the same time, Amazon expects faster shipping to drive higher order volume and revenue, with the goal of ultimately making the model pay for itself.
The company projects the fully scaled program will increase sub-same-day delivery volume by at least 40 million units this year alone, helping offset the added costs through higher sales and new revenue streams, including premium delivery fees. Those fees are expected to generate at least $20 million in incremental revenue this year, according to the documents.
Over time, Amazon expects the model to turn profitable, projecting about $40 million in operating profit this year and roughly $260 million in 2027 if fully rolled out by September 2026, the documents added.
That helps explain why Amazon is moving quickly to expand all-day delivery. The company wants to "blitz scale" the model across its network this year after the current pilot test, according to one of the documents.
At law firms, the billable hour is the standard way to charge clients. But timekeeping is a pain.
The startup PointOne says it's using AI to help lawyers auto-complete timesheets and bill more time.
PointOne raised $16 million in a funding round led by the venture capital firm 8VC.
Tracking hours is part of how lawyers get paid. It's also the bane of the profession.
A startup called PointOne wants to eliminate the most tedious part of a lawyer's job. It says its AI-powered platform passively tracks a lawyer's computer activity and uses it to complete timesheets.
The company grew revenue tenfold since July, says PointOne cofounder Katon Luaces, after signing up dozens of law firm customers, ranging from a global 1,200-lawyer outfit to solo practitioners.
Investors are taking notice. After making a small earlier investment, the Joe Londsale-founded venture firm 8VC is leading a $16 million Series A round for PointOne, Luaces tells Business Insider. Existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, General Catalyst, and Y Combinator also participated.
Founders are flooding into legal tech, betting they can turn large language models into products law firms will trust — and competing for attention in an estimated $1 trillion industry.
Jack Moshkovich, an 8VC partner, said the market is crowded with companies trying to help lawyers do work faster. That leaves more whitespace, he said, on the operational side of the business.
Luaces isn't a lawyer. In 2019, he was a computer science major and a Google intern as the company's researchers were laying the groundwork for modern large language models.
He saw legal work as a natural target for the technology because so much of it is repetitive and text-heavy. By 2023, he and his roommate, Jeremy Ben-Meir, along with a third cofounder, Adrian Parlow, started sketching out an idea for a legal startup. (Parlow left PointOne last year and joined legal-tech giant Legora.)
When Luaces asked lawyers which part of the job they hated most, he kept hearing the same answer: timekeeping. At most law firms, the billable hour is the standard way to charge clients. Lawyers log the work they do for each client — often in six-minute increments — then tally those hours and bill accordingly. Many still track their hours in a spreadsheet or by hand on a legal pad.
PointOne's platform runs in the background as lawyers move between apps, then fills in time entries with the client, matter, a description of the work, and standardized legal codes.
Security and confidentiality are essential for law firms. Clients trust them with trade secrets and other closely held information, leaving little room for error from any software vendor.
When asked how lawyers feel about software watching them work, Luaces said their dislike of timekeeping helps overcome any discomfort. PointOne says it encrypts stored sensitive data, does not train models on firm data, and gives firms the option to use models in a private Azure environment.
For lawyers, "this is like magic beans," Luaces said.
Time savings aren't the point
Law firms are still working out how to use artificial intelligence to work faster without hurting their economics. Software that saves time can also reduce the number of hours a firm can bill.
PointOne, however, is not pitching itself as a way to save lawyers' time. Instead, it says it can help firms capture time that would otherwise go unbilled.
Some share of legal work never makes it into timesheets. Junior lawyers may undercount how long a task took, either because they're still learning or because they're embarrassed. More often, Luaces said, lawyers skip billing for small tasks because logging them takes almost as long as the work itself.
A lawyer might spend four minutes writing a client email. "I can either spend the next four minutes creating the time entry for it, or I can do more work," Luaces said. "Nine out of 10 times, everyone chooses to do more work."
He says the company's software can increase revenue by capturing billable time that would otherwise be lost.
PointOne isn't the only company making such promises. Its biggest competitor, Laurel, provides professional services firms with analytics about their operations, including time. It's raised over $150 million in funding since 2016, compared to PointOne's $20 million total.
PointOne wants to position itself for a broader shift in how legal work gets priced. Corporate clients are pushing back on soaring legal bills, and as artificial intelligence threatens to trim billable hours, firms are under pressure to test alternatives to hourly billing, including fixed fees for certain matters. Luaces said PointOne's data can help firms better understand the labor behind a matter, which in turn can help them price that work more precisely.
US soccer icon Abby Wambach, shown here in a 2015 game, said she never expected to need colon cancer screening as a young, healthy athlete.
Chris Graythen/Getty Images
Olympic gold medalist and soccer star Abby Wambach said a colonoscopy at 35 likely saved her life.
The test found polyps that, with her family history of cancer, put her at high risk.
Colon cancer is now the leading cause of cancer-related deaths under 50. Early screening is crucial.
At the height of her soccer career, Abby Wambach felt invincible.
A FIFA world champion, two-time winner of the Olympic gold with the US women's national team, and a record-setting goal scorer, she was at the top of her game and racking up awards.
"I was fit. I was capable. I was one of the best in the world, and I had medals to prove it," Wambach told Business Insider.
But when Wambach was 35, her mother was diagnosed with colon cancer. Considered at risk because of her family history, Wambach underwent a colonoscopy. The procedure found she had polyps, abnormal growths in the colon that can become cancerous.
At the time, the recommended age for colon cancer screening was 50. While not all polyps become tumors, 15 years could have been more than enough time for Wambach to develop cancer, potentially at a stage too late for treatment.
"If I didn't get that screening and waited, that absolutely could have killed me," she said.
Now, as colon cancer has become the No. 1 cause of cancer-related deaths in Americans under 50, Wambach is urging others to get screened.
She and her fellow Olympian, soccer champ, and podcast co-host Julie Foudy are raising awareness by partnering with Cologuard, a non-invasive, at-home stool test for adults 45 and older at average risk.
"It's one of the most preventable forms of cancer if you get screened," Foudy said. "Even if you feel fine, you have to get screened. It doesn't take that long."
Colon cancer cases are rising in young people
Wambach said colon cancer can affect anyone. As a pro soccer star, she was used to being in tune with her body to perform at an elite level. She never expected to have an abnormal colonoscopy, and she almost couldn't believe the results.
"When the doctor came and told me when I'm coming back from anesthesia, I was like, 'This can't be true,'" Wambach said. "It doesn't matter who you are; this can happen to anyone."
Early detection of colon cancer is key because the disease is highly treatable in the initial stages.
Symptoms of colon cancer often occur only in later stages, when the disease has spread elsewhere in the body, and the odds of survival are significantly lower.
"If you are feeling symptoms from colorectal cancer, it is too late," Wambach said.
That means it's crucial to understand potential risk factors, such as family history. Wambach said her mom's diagnosis was a turning point for the whole family to get screened.
"I just remember vividly the process that she went through, how scary it was, and how important it was for all of us to learn this," she said.
Colon cancer screening should start at age 45 for most people, according to the American Cancer Society. That's five years earlier than previously recommended, due to the growing number of early-onset cancer cases.
However, anyone with colon cancer risk factors, such as a genetic history or symptoms such as rectal bleeding, should get screened earlier.
Foudy and Wambach at the Cologuard Classic by Exact Sciences, a tournament to raise awareness of colorectal cancer screening and featuring patients and survivors.
Courtesy of Exact Sciences
A colonoscopy is the gold standard for colon cancer testing. Still, simple at-home stool tests like Cologuard are available for people 45 and older who are at average risk. Stool tests need to be done more frequently — every three years — and abnormal results require a follow-up colonoscopy.
Foudy, 55, has used the test herself. She said it's conveniently done in about 10 minutes at home and should be standard practice, but many women her age aren't up to date on screenings.
"I'm around active, healthy women all the time. I had a friend the other day who said, 'I've never gotten screened,'" she said. "What are you doing? This is too easy. Go get it."
Demarre Johnson went viral for a glossy magazine spread featuring the "Finest Boys in Finance."
Demarre Johnson
Demarre Johnson, 23, appeared in a viral photo shoot published by Interview magazine last week.
PwC on Friday confirmed Johnson had left the company, saying he departed in mid-February.
A person familiar with the matter told Business Insider his exit wasn't related to the magazine pictorial.
One of the "finest boys in finance" — whose splashy magazine spread last week was the talk of Wall Street — is no longer with his firm.
In a statement to Business Insider, PwC confirmed that former associate Demarre Johnson is "no longer an employee and left the firm in mid-February."
Johnson went viral last week after he and three junior bankers were featured in designer clothing in an Interview magazine photo shoot published March 4. A person familiar with the matter said his departure was not related to his magazine appearance.
The 23-year-old, who spoke with Business Insider twice after the magazine story, didn't comment when a reporter reached him on Friday.
The Babson College graduate talked to Business Insider last week about being chosen for the spread, saying he knew it would make headlines because "controversy sells."
"My initial reaction was, 'Oh, they're going to clown us because we think we're pretty,'" Johnson said. "That's exactly what happened."
The photo shoot generated instant discourse among Wall Street insiders who took to social media to vent about the stereotypes they said it portrayed and the unofficial rules it broke — including not outshining your bosses.
Bankers buzzed about whether the participants — who also worked at Goldman Sachs and Barclays — got approval from their employers before going in front of the cameras. Goldman said that "media relations did not approve these interviews." The other firms didn't comment at the time.
Johnson, who has a vibrant social media presence, said on Monday that he's been careful about social media posts he's made about his job. "If I built the multibillion-dollar bank business, I would hate if one of my associates formed my company's image with one video," he told Business Insider.
Other participants in the shoot have avoided the spotlight since its release, but Johnson reposted feedback about the story on his social channels.
"I'm viral on twitter," he said in one post, with four crying emojis.
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