Photographer: Hollie Adams\/Bloomberg <\/p>\n
(Bloomberg) — Meta Platforms Inc.\u2019s Mark Zuckerberg\u00a0is expected\u00a0to meaningfully cut resources for building the so-called metaverse, an effort that he once framed as the future of the company and the reason for changing its name from Facebook Inc.<\/p>\n
Executives are considering\u00a0potential budget cuts as high as 30% for the metaverse group next year, which includes the virtual worlds product Meta Horizon Worlds\u00a0and its Quest virtual reality unit, according to people familiar with the talks, who asked not to be named while discussing private company plans. Cuts that high would most likely include layoffs as early as January, according to the people, though a final decision has not yet been made.<\/p>\n
Most Read from Bloomberg<\/p>\n
Meta confirmed a reduction in resources for the metaverse, and said savings are expected to funnel toward other futuristic projects within Meta\u2019s Reality Labs division, including AI glasses and other wearables.\u00a0\u201cWithin our overall Reality Labs portfolio we are shifting some of our investment from Metaverse toward AI glasses and wearables given the momentum there. We aren\u2019t planning any broader changes than that,\u201d the spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The proposed metaverse cuts are part of the company\u2019s annual budget planning for 2026, which included a series of meetings at Zuckerberg\u2019s compound in Hawaii last month, people familiar with the company said.\u00a0\u00a0Zuckerberg has asked Meta executives to look for 10% cuts across the board, which has been the standard request during similar budget cycles the past few years, they added.<\/p>\n
The metaverse group was asked to cut deeper this year given that Meta has not seen the level of industry-wide competition over the technology that it once expected, they said. The majority of the proposed cuts are likely to hit Meta\u2019s virtual reality group, which makes up the bulk of metaverse-related spend, the people said. Cuts would also target\u00a0Horizon Worlds.<\/p>\n
Photographer: David Paul Morris\/Bloomberg <\/p>\n
The entire metaverse effort has drawn scrutiny from investors, who have seen it as a drain on resources, as well as from watchdogs, who have alleged that children\u2019s privacy and safety have been compromised in the virtual worlds. Shares of Meta gained 3.4% to $661.53.<\/p>\n
Meta\u2019s vision for the metaverse has not\u00a0taken off despite Zuckerberg\u2019s conviction, which he still has,\u00a0that people will one day work and play in virtual worlds. In 2021, as Facebook was facing fallout for user safety and privacy issues, Zuckerberg rebranded the whole company around the idea of the\u00a0metaverse and started spending heavily on the vision.<\/p>\n
The metaverse group sits within Reality Labs, the Meta division focused on long-term bets like VR headsets and AR glasses. That group has lost more than $70\u00a0billion\u00a0\u00a0since the start of 2021. Zuckerberg has largely stopped mentioning the metaverse in public and on company earnings calls, and is instead focused on developing the large AI models that underpin AI chatbots and other generative AI products, as well as the hardware products that are more linked to those experiences, like Meta\u2019s Ray-Ban smart display glasses.<\/p>\n
Zuckerberg Could Cut Budget for Metaverse Group by Up to 30% <\/p>\n
Some analysts and investors have long advocated that Zuckerberg rid himself of Reality Labs products that continue to drain resources without providing much revenue in return. In April, Mike Proulx, a vice president at research and advisory firm Forrester, predicted that Meta would \u201cshutter its metaverse projects, like Horizon Worlds\u201d before the end of the year.<\/p>\n
Meta\u2019s \u201cReality Labs division continues to be a leaky bucket,\u201d he said in an email at the time, pointing to the unit\u2019s losses. Shuttering metaverse efforts, Proulx said, \u201cwould allow the company to give more focus to its AI projects including Llama, Meta AI, and AI glasses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meta is still committed to building consumer hardware, and recently hired Apple Inc.\u2019s top design executive to help.<\/p>\n
–With assistance from Riley Griffin.<\/p>\n
(Updates with meta comment in the third paragraph)<\/p>\n
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\u00a92025 Bloomberg L.P.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photographer: Hollie Adams\/Bloomberg (Bloomberg) — Meta Platforms Inc.\u2019s Mark Zuckerberg\u00a0is expected\u00a0to meaningfully cut resources for building the so-called…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":425167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3638,64,7798,198081,7062,84597,67,132,68,198082,198080],"class_list":{"0":"post-425166","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-bloomberg","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-mark-zuckerberg","11":"tag-meta-horizon-worlds","12":"tag-meta-platforms","13":"tag-reality-labs","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-virtual-reality-group","18":"tag-virtual-worlds"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115663924361785855","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}