META and Microsoft have announced more than 20,000 job cuts amid intense competition to invest in new AI technology.

Facebook and Instagram owner Meta said that it would cut around 8,000 jobs, or 10 per cent of its workforce, and leave about 6,000 job posts unfilled.

In a memo sent to staff, the company said the move will allow new investments in parts of the business.

Meta chief executive and founder Mark Zuckerberg is leading aggressive spending on talent and technology infrastructure to support new AI products, including chatbots and large language models.

Microsoft has instead launched a major voluntary redundancy programme. It plans to make the offers in early May to about 8,750 people, or 7 per cent of its US workforce.

It is not known if the cuts will affect the roughly 12,000 staff the firms will employ in Britain. Both will brief investors with trading updates next week.