Meta is drastically reducing investments in the metaverse division that four years ago seemed to have a bright future
Meta AI (photo Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto/Shuttersto / Shutterstock Editorial / Profimedia)
Facebook became Meta in 2021 to focus on the idea of a virtual social space called the metaverse, but the company is making an important change and will significantly reduce the budget dedicated to this project that turned out to be much less promising than it was thought.
Meta bosses are also considering cuts of up to 30% of the budget of the division that deals with the metaverse, and layoffs could follow from January, writes Bloomberg, citing company sources.
Meta confirmed the dwindling financial resources for metaverse and said the available funds will be redirected to other projects within the Reality Labs division, such as AI smart glasses and other “wearable” gadgets.
The whole project of the metaverse has been criticized both by investors, who consider it a waste of resources, and by watchdogs, who have accused that there are big problems for the safety and privacy of young people in these virtual worlds.
In 2021, Mark Zuckerberg was announcing a rebranding of the Facebook company and everything was built around the idea of the “metaverse”, betting that millions of people would want to work, play and spend time in these proposed AR and VR virtual worlds. But it wasn't, and the Reality Labs division lost more than $70 billion in five years.
Mark Zuckerberg hardly even mentions the metaverse publicly anymore, insisting instead on developing the advanced AI models that underlie chatbots.
