Meta Is in Crisis, Google Search’s Makeover, and AI Gets Booed by Graduates

This week on Uncanny Valley, the team discusses Meta’s recent layoffs and what they’ve been hearing from employees about the increasingly grim vibes at the company. They also talk about Elon Musk losing his lawsuit against OpenAI and share highlights from Google’s annual conference—including an ambitious AI vision to change how people search the web. Finally, what do recent college graduates and women whose spouses work in AI have in common? They’re all sick of hearing about it. Articles mentioned in this episode: - Meta’s New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale - Everything Announced at Google I/O 2026: Gemini, Search, Smart Glasses - Google Search Goes Agentic—and Doesn’t Need You Anymore - Meet the Sad Wives of AI You can follow Brian Barrett on Bluesky at @brbarrett, Zoë Schiffer on Bluesky at @zoeschiffer, and Leah Feiger on Bluesky at @leahfeiger. Write to us at [email protected]. How to Listen You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts and search for “Uncanny Valley.” We’re on Spotify too. Transcript Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors. Zoë Schiffer: Welcome to WIRED's Uncanny Valley. I'm Zoë Schiffer, director of business and industry. Brian Barrett: I'm Brian Barrett, executive editor. Leah Feiger: And I'm Leah Feiger, director of politics and science. Brian Barrett: And we're all in the same room— Zoë Schiffer: Oh, my God. Brian Barrett: —for the first time from the podcast. Zoë Schiffer: Same room. Leah Feiger: I got invited to the group chat. Zoë Schiffer: You did. Brian Barrett: Look at that. Zoë Schiffer: Today on the show, we're discussing the complete meltdown over mass layoffs at Meta. We spoke to more than a dozen employees, and it turns out the job cuts are far from the only reason why Meta employees are really going through it. Brian Barrett: And of course, we wouldn't skip the Elon Musk verdict. He lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI in really as full a way as you can, as dramatically as possible. I know, Zoë, you're looking forward to talking about that. Zoë Schiffer: Yes. Brian Barrett: And I'm looking forward to talking about Google's annual developer conference, I/O, where it debuted some dramatic changes to search. Leah Feiger: And you might've seen that Google's former CEO, Eric Schmidt, recently got booed by graduating students after he praised AI in a commencement speech. We're going to get into why young adults might be using AI, but they have very complicated feelings about it. And later in the show, we're going to hear about why women married to AI bros have had enough. Zoë Schiffer: First up, let's dive into what is happening at Meta. This week, the…