{"id":231144,"date":"2026-01-13T17:03:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T17:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/231144\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T17:03:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T17:03:07","slug":"meta-refocuses-on-ai-hardware-as-metaverse-layoffs-begin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/231144\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta refocuses on AI hardware as metaverse layoffs begin"},"content":{"rendered":"

As we expected<\/a>, Meta has begun laying off more than 1,000 employees from its Reality Labs division, which focused on virtual reality and metaverse products, Bloomberg reports<\/a>. The company will refocus on developing wearables, like its recent batch of AI-powered Ray-Ban smart glasses, according to a memo from CTO Andrew Bosworth.<\/p>\n

The news isn\u2019t too surprising. Reality Labs has lost more than $70 billion since the beginning of 2021, and while Meta has done a solid job of delivering desirable consumer VR headsets and smart glasses, that business hasn\u2019t been nearly profitable enough to justify the cost. And of course, Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s huge gamble on the metaverse, which involved renaming the company from Facebook to Meta in 2021,<\/a> has gone nowhere.<\/p>\n

According to Bloomberg, Meta\u2019s metaverse plans will now focus on mobile devices, which could mean a combination of its future wearables as well as existing mobile apps. \u201cWith the larger potential user base and the fastest growth rate today, we are shifting teams and resources almost exclusively to mobile to continue to accelerate adoption there,\u201d Bosworth wrote in a memo to staff this morning.<\/p>\n

Meta isn\u2019t dumping its VR headset plans entirely, but according to Bosworth the VR divion will \u201coperate as a leaner, flatter organization with a more focused road map to maximize long-term sustainability.\u201d Basically, don\u2019t expect a Quest 3 follow-up anytime soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As we expected, Meta has begun laying off more than 1,000 employees from its Reality Labs division, which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,31939,363,364,898,109151,111,139,69,114066,20548,145,360],"class_list":{"0":"post-231144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-andrew-bosworth","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-meta","13":"tag-metaverse","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-reality-labs","18":"tag-smart-glasses","19":"tag-technology","20":"tag-virtual-reality"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}