For many years now Mark Zuckerberg seems to have been the only one with any great belief in the future of his so called ‘metaverse’, but reality may now be hitting home.
The name change from Facebook to Meta was driven by Mark Zuckerberg’s belief that we would all hang out in virtual reality spaces for work and play – the so-called metaverse, but according to sources speaking to Bloomberg, the Facebook owner’s metaverse build will now see significant divestment, with as many as 30pc of the group being cut as early as this January.
The group behind the ‘metaverse’ build sits within Meta’s Reality Labs division, which is responsible for more promising technologies like its AI smart glasses and other wearables. Indeed, Meta just this week poached highly regarded Apple design executive Alan Dye for its team, signalling a serious focus on consumer hardware and devices.
The cuts will come to the teams behind Meta’s Horizon Worlds and Quest virtual reality groups, although the sources cited did say nothing was yet confirmed. It’s hard to see past the cuts coming now or in the near future, as the metaverse clearly never took off.
Meta confirmed to Bloomberg that indeed the company would be “shifting some of our investment from Metaverse toward AI glasses and wearables given the momentum there”. Wall Street was delighted with the reporting, and Meta’s shares soared by 7pc in the hours after the news broke, according to CNN. Investors have long bemoaned the drain on Meta’s resources that the metaverse proved to be.
Zuckerberg went all in on the metaverse, but these days he is on record predicting that smart glasses will one day replace smartphones. He’s not alone in this belief. Chinese retail and technology giant Alibaba officially entered the market recently with its Qwen-powered Quark AI Glasses available for purchase in China.
And Apple recently entered the fray, reportedly pausing work on a cheaper and lighter variant of its Vision Pro headset and pivoting towards smart glasses that compete with Meta.
“Glasses are going to be the next major computing platform,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed last year. His belief is that the tech will slowly replace smartphones in the 2030s. Meta has been working on smart glasses for a number of years, releasing the Ray-Ban Stories in 2021 and Ray-Ban Meta in 2023.
The company’s latest development in the line, the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, retail for $799, and come with AI capabilities – although the glasses failed a public demonstration in a glitch-filled performance in Zuckerberg’s own hands earlier this year.
“Looking ahead, AI glasses open the door to a revolutionary way of connecting and interacting with computers in the AI era,” Wu Jia, vice-president, Alibaba Group said when the Quark AI glasses were launched.
Whether the smart glasses bet pays off remains to be seen but, to most of us casual observers, they certainly seem a more realistic bet than the vision for the future promised by the metaverse.
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