Meta Platforms started cutting more than 1,000 jobs from its Reality Labs division on Tuesday. The company is redirecting resources from virtual reality and metaverse products toward AI wearables and mobile features. According to Bloomberg, the cuts affect roughly 10 percent of employees within Reality Labs, which has about 15,000 workers.
Shift From Metaverse to AI Devices
Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth told affected employees about the layoffs in an internal post on Tuesday morning. The company is pivoting its metaverse efforts to focus on mobile devices. Meta is also cutting back on virtual reality investments to make the business more sustainable, Bosworth wrote.
A Meta spokesperson said the company announced last month it was shifting investment from metaverse toward wearables. The spokesperson added that Meta plans to reinvest the savings to support wearable growth this year. Reality Labs houses Meta’s hardware and futuristic product efforts, including VR headsets, AI glasses and virtual world products. But Reality Labs has lost more than 70 billion dollars since the start of 2021.
Production Plans for AI Glasses
Meta and EssilorLuxottica are discussing potentially doubling production capacity for AI-powered smart glasses by the end of this year. Meta has suggested increasing annual capacity to 20 million units or more by the end of 2026, according to people familiar with the matter. The company has partnered with EssilorLuxottica to develop AI-powered spectacles with brands like Ray-Ban and Oakley.
Metaverse Remains but Changes Direction
Meta will continue to develop the metaverse but with a focus on mobile phones instead of fully immersive VR headsets. The team building metaverse software experiences, now called Horizon, will bring the best Horizon experiences and AI creator tools to mobile. Bosworth wrote that the team is shifting resources almost exclusively to mobile to accelerate adoption.
Meta is closing three in-house VR game and content studios as part of the cuts. The studios include Armature, Sanzaru, and Twisted Pixel. Supernatural, the VR fitness studio, will continue to support the existing product but will stop developing new content and features. Meta still has five other content and gaming studios. The company said gaming remains the cornerstone of its ecosystem but is shifting investment to focus on third-party developers and partners.
