iWorld
Arre’s ‘Virtual Girlfriend’ wins five awards at LA Web Festival
MUMBAI: Arré’s first web series A.I.SHA | My Virtual Girlfriend wins five awards at the recently held LA Web Festival for Best Series, Best Editing, Best Direction, Best Actress and Best Overall Premise within the Drama Category, from among a selected shortlist of 35 webseries across the world. The series was also nominated for Best Sound Design, Visual Effects, Outstanding Score, Cinematography, Supporting Actor, Best Actor and Writing.
The LA Web Festival is one of the oldest, largest and most influential web series festivals globally and has screened nearly 1400 web series since 2010. It has been referred to as the ‘Sundance of Web Series Festivals’ by Los Angeles Magazine.
This is the third set of international awards for A.I.SHA after winning Best Overall Web Series and Best Suspense/Thriller at the South Florida Web Festival held in Miami and for Exceptional Merit at the WRPN.TV Global Webisode competition.
Arré’s Official Chukyagiri was also named an Official Honoree in the Film and Video Long Form or Series Category at the 21st Annual Webby Awards 2017.
A.I.SHA, Artificial Intelligence Simulated Humanoid Assistant (A.I.SHA) is India’s first AI-based digital series. The story pivots around the widely debated and chilling premise of what happens when artificial intelligence develops feelings and consciousness? Sam, the show’s protagonist, creates A.I.SHA, without realising the consequences, and thus begins a series of events that rapidly spirals out of control. Catch the full series here.
Season 2 of A.I.SHA is currently live on Arré (at www.arre.co.in, Arré’s YouTube Channel, Facebook Page) and on Arré’s partner platforms – Yupp TV, SonyLIV, Vodafone Play and Jio Cinema.
The series is directed by Sahir Raza, written by Raghu Ram and Harman Singha and produced for Arré by Monozygotic. The show has partnered with Gillette Flexball, Palo Alto Networks, a next-generation security company, Nissin Cup Noodlesand Dell.
Arré brings to India’s new-gen digital audiences a range of contextual storytelling and entertainment using video, audio, graphic-art and text.
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.
