iWorld
Animeta appoints Devdatta Potnis as CEO
Mumbai : Animeta, an AI-powered tech creator company, has announced the appointment of Devdatta Potnis as CEO. This critical appointment comes on the heels of the recent launch of the AI-powered self-service creator tech platform, which aims to create and nurture the untapped potential of the Asian digital-creator economy through financial and analytical assistance.
As CEO, Dev will be responsible for Animeta’s growth, scalability, and team building. The company has already begun operations and will soon announce the names of its creator partners.
“Animeta is a forward-thinking organization in the truly democratized creator economy, and I am grateful to have received the opportunity to be its chief architect”, said Dev about his appointment. “We intend to bring the studio model into the creator economy space where we will be investing in the right creators and creating brands out of them. We will bring about multi-platform monetization, increase their community in regional & international markets, maximize their brand campaigns & empower them for social commerce; all through our AI-powered creator tech platform”, he further added while detailing his role.
Dev has 15 years of experience in the media content business, from producing and financing original content for all leading OTT and Pay TV platforms to marketing films and branded entertainment to celebrity management for companies such as Star, Viacom18, Balaji, and Reliance, among others. Dev was most recently the Chief Growth Officer at Cosmos-Maya, where he was instrumental in securing content commissioning deals worth $100+ million across 25 TV series with 5000+ episodes worldwide.
During his tenure, the studio grew from a 30-person team to over 1000 people. Dev also brings a strong international network spanning the digital monetization value chain, having sold content in more than 120 countries. He was also in charge of launching a YouTube network with 35 channels, 90 million+ subscribers and 50 billion+ views.
Welcoming Devdatta, Animeta Founder Anish Mehta said, “Dev has the ability to build a scalable business, address an individual creator’s needs & manage investor relationships with equal passion & commitment. So he is the right person to spearhead Animeta on its growth path. I’m very happy to have him on board. He has also managed to put together a stellar team which we will be announcing soon.”
iWorld
Meta plans 8,000 layoffs in new AI-led restructuring wave
First phase from May 20 may cut 10 per cent workforce amid AI pivot.
MUMBAI: At Meta, the future may be artificial but the cuts are very real. The social media giant is reportedly preparing a fresh round of layoffs, with an initial wave expected to impact around 8,000 employees as it doubles down on its artificial intelligence ambitions. According to a Reuters report, the first phase of job cuts is slated to begin on May 20, targeting roughly 10 per cent of Meta’s global workforce. With nearly 79,000 employees on its rolls as of December 31, the move marks one of the company’s most significant workforce reductions in recent years.
And this may only be the beginning. Sources indicate that additional layoffs are being planned for the second half of the year, although the scale and timing remain fluid, likely to be shaped by how Meta’s AI capabilities evolve in the coming months. Earlier reports had suggested that total cuts in 2026 could reach 20 per cent or more of its workforce.
The restructuring comes as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg continues to steer the company towards an AI-first operating model, committing hundreds of billions of dollars to the transition. Internally, this shift is already visible: teams within Reality Labs have been reorganised, engineers have been moved into a newly formed Applied AI unit, and a Meta Small Business division has been created to align with broader structural changes.
The trend is hardly isolated. Across the tech sector, companies are trimming headcount while investing aggressively in automation. Amazon, for instance, has reportedly cut around 30,000 corporate roles nearly 10 per cent of its white-collar workforce citing efficiency gains driven by AI. Data from Layoffs.fyi shows over 73,000 tech employees have already lost jobs this year, compared with 153,000 in all of 2024.
For Meta, the move echoes its earlier “year of efficiency” in 2022–23, when about 21,000 roles were eliminated amid slowing growth and market pressures. This time, however, the backdrop is different. The company is financially stronger, generating over $200 billion in revenue and $60 billion in profit last year, with shares up 3.68 per cent year-to-date though still below last summer’s peak.
That contrast underlines the shift underway. These layoffs are less about survival and more about reinvention. As Meta restructures itself around AI from autonomous coding agents to advanced machine learning systems, the question is no longer whether the company will change, but how many roles will be left unchanged when it does.
