Khaberni - Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, made a big bet that cost his company $77 billion over the past five years.
This bet is the "metaverse" - a virtual, three-dimensional, and extended digital world where people interact online using digital avatars - and Zuckerberg invested so heavily in it that he renamed Facebook after it, thereby changing the company's brand to "Meta." This change occurred in 2021, and it now seems that he is making a radical change by scaling down the company's approach and reallocating its resources to other areas.
As artificial intelligence sweeps the technology world, the metaverse has not achieved the success that Zuckerberg had hoped for. Meta's stocks rose after announcing this shift in strategy.
Zuckerberg was so convinced by the idea of the metaverse that he "had previously described it" as "the future of the company," according to Bloomberg.
These changes are "part of Meta's annual budget planning for 2026," and it is expected that the company's spending will shift from the metaverse to "wearable artificial intelligence devices."
This latter concept is one that major technology companies, such as Apple, are investing in. Meanwhile, the metaverse is part of "Meta Reality Labs."
The metaverse is not just virtual reality; it is a concept envisioning a series of interconnected digital worlds, including virtual reality as well as social media sites and other digital environments, allowing people to interact in a comprehensive and shared virtual world.
The metaverse world has been described as "a vast network of interconnected digital spaces". Zuckerberg had introduced this concept as the future of Meta. According to Forbes, the world of the metaverse tends to rely on open platforms that allow users to develop and share content and applications.
Forbes described the metaverse as "a network of interconnected virtual worlds. Each virtual world in the metaverse can be designed and managed independently of the others."
It now seems that Zuckerberg is directing Meta's focus towards artificial intelligence and moving away from the metaverse, a significant change given the considerable focus the Facebook founder had placed on this concept.
Meta may reduce up to 30% of the metaverse section in the company, known as "Reality Labs". This comes at a time when the company is trying to cut its expenses by 10% across all areas, according to "Bloomberg".
Zuckerberg plans to carry out "deep cuts" in the metaverse, and it is expected to "substantially reduce the resources allocated to building what is known as the metaverse," according to the agency.
Investors saw this shift towards focusing on artificial intelligence as positive because it means that "Meta" will invest more heavily in artificial intelligence, which is currently considered the technology of the era.
Some experts believe that metaverse devices are expensive, which is one of the reasons for their lack of widespread adoption.
According to Bloomberg, Zuckerberg discussed with his executives how to redistribute the company's resources, since investing in artificial intelligence must be compensated elsewhere in "Meta", which has pushed the focus on scaling down the metaverse.
