“When we started this work last year, our business wasn’t performing as well as I wanted,” Mr. Zuckerberg said in the call with investors. He added that he continued “to believe that slowing hiring, flattening our management structure” would improve the speed and quality of Meta’s work.

But those moves have also hurt employee morale. Workers are questioning whether they will be among the layoffs. Mr. Zuckerberg has said he is trying to eliminate “managers managing managers,” the result of a glut of middle management driven by overzealous pandemic-era hiring.

The company said it had 77,114 employees as of March 31, down 1 percent from a year earlier.

Despite the latest results, Meta’s challenges remain. The company’s costs in the first quarter jumped 10 percent from a year earlier, to $21.4 billion, outstripping revenue growth.

As hype for the metaverse has died and shifted to artificial intelligence, Meta is also trying to position itself as a leader in the field, drawing on years of investment. Mr. Zuckerberg and his executive team are attending weekly meetings focused on A.I. strategy. He has told investors that A.I. is helping to suggest more relevant photos and videos to Instagram and Facebook users.

Mr. Zuckerberg said he expected the new technology to “touch literally every single one of our products” in the future. He did not reveal specific plans, but speculated on potential products like A.I.-powered chatbots that could help customer service or small businesses that use WhatsApp. A.I. could also help make photos or videos more engaging, he said.

For now, Meta plans to continue investing heavily in data centers and infrastructure that help build up A.I. efforts, similar to other big tech companies.

“Our A.I. work is driving good results across our apps and business,” Mr. Zuckerberg said.