Mark Zuckerberg has quietly admitted that Meta’s grand metaverse dream is falling flat, marking a major U-turn from the company’s earlier high hopes.
Since 2021, Meta’s Reality Labs – the division behind the metaverse push – has racked up more than $70 billion in losses, forcing a big rethink at the social media giant.
Now, Meta is shifting gears, putting artificial intelligence front and centre. Zuckerberg has made it clear AI is the company’s new top priority.
The tech titan plans to splash up to $72 billion in 2025, mainly on beefing up data centres and training AI models.
Zuckerberg himself is leading the charge to snap up the best AI brains, dangling hefty pay packages to win the cutthroat talent war.
Investors welcomed the change, sending Meta’s shares up around 4% after news broke of budget cuts to the struggling VR side.
The metaverse failed to catch on with the public, with poor sales of Quest headsets and the Horizon Worlds platform playing a big part in the rethink.
Meta has also pushed back the launch of its Mixed Reality Glasses from late 2026 to early 2027, saying more time is needed to get the product right.
This move signals the end of Meta’s metaverse-first era and a fresh push to take on rivals in the fast-moving AI arena.