Source: Science and Technology Innovation board Daily.
① Meta is cutting expenses in its VR, AR, and metaverse department, Reality Labs. ② Within a year, there have been several rounds of restructuring in Reality Labs, mostly targeting mid-to-senior level managers.
Zuckerberg's dream of the metaverse has been awakened.
According to the U.S. technology website The Information, Meta is cutting expenses in its VR, AR, and metaverse department, Reality Labs. Reality Labs used to be Zuckerberg's 'dreamland', but the massive investment failed to make his metaverse dreams come true.
Since 2019, Meta's cumulative losses on Reality Labs have exceeded $55 billion, with annual losses skyrocketing from $4.5 billion in 2019 to $16.1 billion in 2023.
As investment in the new AI darling continues to grow, the massive losses of Reality Labs have sparked doubts from investors and within the company. Meta is now reevaluating this 'burn money' department.
Purge.
In a Reality Labs employee gathering in February of this year, Meta CFO Lee Susan said that Reality Labs should focus on the $1 trillion business opportunities in the AR and VR fields. This means that Zuckerberg's favorite metaverse has fallen out of favor.
Therefore, the hardware team at Reality Labs has been asked to cut nearly 20% of their spending by 2026, with most of the cuts taking place this year.
Within about a year, there have been several rounds of restructuring in Reality Labs, mostly targeting mid-to-senior level managers. After the layoffs, one manager's direct subordinates increased from two to at least six.
In the June layoffs, the company ruthlessly laid off more than a dozen leaders in Reality Labs, including Kaitlyn Kalinowski, who had been the AR glasses hardware manager, and Steve McClure, who had been the intelligent glasses hardware manager. These two teams now directly report to Paul Gureghian, VP of AR Hardware Engineering.
Even Reality Labs Vice President Ingrid Kotaros was fired. Her equipment tech engineering team was primarily responsible for developing new hardware technology for current and future products. Last month, the team was disbanded, and employees were reassigned to other teams such as system engineering and displays.
This month, Meta also reassigned most of the Reality Labs AI voice team to the generative AI department.
Still not giving up on AR/VR.
When Zuckerberg renamed Facebook to Meta in 2021, he said that Meta would become a 'metaverse company'. 'From now on, we will prioritize the metaverse, not Facebook,' he said.
In a conference call with analysts last year, Zuckerberg still insisted that the metaverse was a 'very long-term bet', saying, 'I can't guarantee that my bet is the right one, but I really do think this is the direction of the world.'
However, sales of related metaverse devices are still weak. According to analysts IDC, shipments of AR/VR headsets fell 23.5% last year and 67.4% in the first quarter of this year.
Apple's Vision Pro mixed-reality headset was highly anticipated, but its market response was mixed. According to reports, Apple has suspended development of the next-generation Vision Pro and is focusing on launching a cheaper version to attract consumers.
Despite the pressure to cut expenses, Meta has not chosen to completely abandon AR and VR. According to multiple sources, Meta is still developing a range of new Quest headsets and AR glasses, and plans to launch them within the next three years.
This includes an AR headset that will be released next year, along with Quest 4 VR headsets planned for release in 2026 and 2027, and a high-end Quest headset that competes with Apple's Vision Pro.
It is worth mentioning that with the continued rise of AI devices, Meta added a Meta AI assistant to its latest version of Ray-Ban smart glasses this spring. This assistant can recognize objects and help users with translations and other tasks.
Editor/Lambor