Things are looking up for Meta. The company beat revenue expectations and reported year-over-year revenue growth for the first time in three quarters. But this ray of light for the company formerly known as Facebook comes in the midst of a tough restructuring, which has resulted in more than 10,000 jobs eliminated this year.
Technology moves through buzzwords like clockwork. Although the metaverse was all the rage when Meta changed its name—a sort of self-referential, recursive hype—it’s all about AI now. Despite heavy losses on his investments in the metaverse, CEO Mark Zuckerberg made sure to tell investors that he’s not taking a U-turn into AI lane. Rather, he sees AI as a technology that works in tandem with the metaverse.
“A narrative has developed that we’re somehow moving away from focusing on the metaverse view, so I just want to say up front that that’s not accurate,” Zuckerberg said. “We have been focusing on AI and the metaverse, and we will continue to do so.”
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Meta doesn’t expect Reality Labs to make any money yet, but investors have raised concerns that this heavy investment it may not be worth it. Zuckerberg’s interest in continued AI development might assuage some of those concerns (Meta’s stock price has risen, for example), but the metaverse is still losing money.
Reality Labs, Meta’s VR and AR department, lost nearly $4 billion this quarter. In all of last year, he lost $13.7 billion. Zuckerberg pointed out, however, that VR and AR technology does in fact involve AI.
“Our vision for AR glasses involves an AI-centric operating system that we believe will be the foundation for the next generation of computing,” Zuckerberg said on the call.
When it comes to his vision of the metaverse, Zuckerberg said that half of the daily active users on his Quest headsets spend more than an hour per day on their device. Meta did not disclose how many people use the Quest headphones on a daily basis.
“Building the metaverse is a long-term project, but the logic remains the same and we remain committed to it,” Zuckerberg said.
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