iWorld
Animeta adds tech and media mavens for dynamic leadership team
Mumbai: The former CEO Cosmos-Maya Anish Mehta has founded the creator tech business Animeta today announced numerous strategic hiring. The firm is positioned for significant success in the Asian creator market because to the new leadership team, which unites seasoned experts from the most cutting-edge and significant digital and media companies in the globe.
Vipasha Joshi who will serve as COO, Krishna Desai who will serve as CPO, and Biswamitra “Vishu” Ray, who will oversee branded content and creative initiatives at Animeta, are among the new hires. These hires come after Devdatta Potnis, who was formerly at Cosmos Maya and Viacom, was just named the company’s CEO.
Animeta’s CEO Devdatta Potnis is in charge of the company’s expansion, scalability, and development of a strong staff. At Indian animation studio Cosmos-Maya, where he most recently served as chief growth officer, Potnis was crucial in commissioning content deals totaling $100+ million and expanding the staff from 30 to over 1,000.
He said, “Our AI-powered platform will provide talented creators with multi-platform monetization opportunities while increasing their communities in regional and international markets. I am glad that we have a stellar team with the right and relevant experiences to accomplish this.”
Among the new appointees, Vipasha will lead creator growth and content strategy at Animeta across all major verticals, languages and regions. Joshi’s experience includes eight years as head of diversity at Google India, and stints at Dentsu and Jellysmack, where she developed the creator program in APAC and grew creator revenue fivefold across multiple platforms.
“Animeta offers holistic, all-encompassing, sustainable growth for our creator partners, and I am happy to make a meaningful difference in the creators’ lives,” said Joshi.
The creation of the AI-powered platform that will supply data and business analytics to support Animeta’s operations will be overseen by chief product officer and Data Scientist Krishna Desai. Desai is a media expert with more than 22 years of experience in the media and television sectors. He has created data-driven programs for top international corporations, such as WPP and WarnerMedia, where he served as network head.
“I am excited to build an AI-powered tech product that has the potential to change the lives of millions of social content creators across the world and bring about a paradigm shift in the industry”, said Desai.
Biswamitra “Vishu” Ray, who will focus on superstar creator growth and partnerships as SVP of branded content and creator projects, completes the new leadership group. Ray previously worked for Meta for eight years, leading creator strategy for Facebook and Instagram in India and overseeing the platforms’ connections with the most popular and skilled creators there.
“I’m fortunate that my creator friends perceive me as an ‘enabler,’” said Ray. “With my role at Animeta, I intend to do exactly that — enable more opportunities for creators and bring about a holistic, concerted effort which will lead to their sustained, scalable, well-rounded growth.”
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.
