Facebook-parent Meta is planning to cut 10% of its workforce in Reality Labs Division which is behind the Meta Quest headsets, Ray-Ban Smart Glasses and the virtual reality social network known as the Metaverse. Quoting people familiar with the development, a Bloomberg report says that the job cuts come as the company shifts priorities to build next-generation artificial intelligence (AI). It states that the latest job cuts may put breaks on Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg‘s long-chased vision of building virtual reality for the metaverse which started in 2014 with the acquisition of virtual reality start-up Oculus in 2014 for $2 billion. Another step in this direction came in 2021, when Facebook rebranded itself as Meta.
Meta layoffs may be announced soon
Meta’s Reality Labs Division roughly has 15,000 employees. According to the Bloomberg report, Meta may announce the cuts to Reality Labs as soon as January 13, 2025. Sources told the publication that layoffs are said to disproportionately affect those in the metaverse unit who work on virtual reality (VR) headsets and a VR-based social network. As per a memo sent by the company to employees last week, Meta’s chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth, who also heads Reality Labs, has called for a ‘most important’ meeting on Wednesday – January 14, asking staff to attend in person.
Last year, Zuckerberg asked top executives to make cuts to their 2026 budgets while he pours money into A.I. research. As Meta faces competition from companies like OpenAI and Google, Mr. Zuckerberg has increased the budget for TBD Lab, the skunk works unit at Meta that aims to build superintelligence, a godlike AI system.As reported by Bloomberg, the company also plans to reallocate some of the money from virtual reality products to increase the budget for its wearables division, which builds smart glasses and wristband computing devices.
Meta investors raises concerns
Despite the company spending tens of billions of dollars on developing virtual reality headset, the consumer response has been slower than expected. Investors have grown wary of Meta’s spending.In December last year, a company spokeswoman said Meta was “shifting some of our investment from Metaverse toward A.I. glasses,” and was not planning “any broader changes.”
