Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s dream of making digital worlds wherein we will hang around with our pals, attend work conferences, and play video games has been a disaster for some time now.
The corporate has misplaced billions of {dollars} on its Actuality Labs division, which was tasked with constructing out the billionaire’s imaginative and prescient for the “metaverse” — an idea that had such a maintain on Zuckerberg just a few years in the past that he renamed the entire company Meta again in 2021.
Now, The Verge reports, Meta is shedding even more employees within the division — this time pummeling the parents engaged on its lineup of Quest VR headsets and apps.
“Some groups inside Oculus Studios are present process shifts in construction and roles which have impacted crew dimension,” Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton instructed The Verge. “These adjustments are supposed to assist Studios work extra effectively on future combined actuality experiences for our rising viewers, whereas nonetheless delivering nice content material for individuals at the moment.”
In accordance to Bloomberg, greater than 100 individuals throughout its Actuality Labs division are being laid off, representing solely the most recent spherical of job cuts.
For years, Zuckerberg was hellbent on turning the idea right into a actuality. However regardless of having spent tens of billions of {dollars} on the tech, actuality stays woefully behind his ambitions.
Whereas the corporate’s Ray-Ban smart glasses have bought higher than Zuckerberg anticipated, Meta’s lineup of VR headsets has seen gross sales droop over time, indicating waning curiosity within the tech.
As of February, the corporate had lost nearly $70 billion over the previous few years, with extraordinarily little to point out for it. A 44-second advert for the corporate’s Horizon Worlds VR app earlier this yr was so terrible that the corporate deleted it following widespread mockery.
The corporate’s digital worlds, as soon as pitched as a spot for work conferences through the COVID-19 pandemic, have been overrun by underage children or became lifeless ghost towns.
In early 2023, Zuckerberg seemingly bowed to the pressure, asserting that Meta can be pivoting to AI, a change that in some ways marked the primary nail within the coffin for the corporate’s VR efforts. On the time, the CEO made noticeably few mentions of his metaverse, suggesting he had minimize his losses and moved on, investing billions in AI as an alternative.
Which leaves the query: may Zuckerberg’s newest obsession undergo the identical destiny as his final ardour undertaking? Tech investors and executives alike have remained extremely cautious of an impending AI bubble, with astronomical spending far outstripping demand.
Is AI the long run, the identical manner Zuckerberg’s metaverse was as soon as seen as the long run as properly?
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