Meta plans to chop round 10 per cent of the workers in its Reality Labs division who work on merchandise together with the metaverse, the New York Times reported on Monday (Jan 12), citing three individuals with data of the discussions.
The cuts to Reality Labs, which has roughly 15,000 staff, may very well be introduced as quickly as Tuesday and are set to disproportionately have an effect on these within the metaverse unit who work on digital actuality headsets and digital social networks, the report stated.
The metaverse had been an enormous mission spearheaded by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who prioritised and spent closely on the enterprise, just for the enterprise to burn greater than US$60 billion since 2020.
Apart from the metaverse, the Reality Labs phase additionally produces Meta’s Quest mixed-reality headsets, sensible glasses made with EssilorLuxottica’s Ray-Ban and augmented-reality glasses.
While the corporate has struggled to promote its imaginative and prescient of an immersive digital universe of interconnected worlds, it has seen early success with the sensible glasses as opponents equivalent to Google and Apple didn’t faucet the market with preliminary makes an attempt.
Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth, who oversees Reality Labs, has referred to as a gathering on Wednesday and has urged workers to attend in particular person, the NYT reported, citing a memo.
Meta didn’t instantly reply to a Reuters request for remark.
The report comes because the Facebook-parent scrambles to remain related in Silicon Valley’s synthetic intelligence race after its Llama 4 mannequin met with a poor reception.