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Meta's VR layoffs, studio closures underscore Zuckerberg's massive pivot to AI
Just over four years after Facebook changed its name to Meta, the company is scaling back its virtual reality ambitions.
Meta is cutting about 10% of staff who focus on metaverse-related VR projects as part of its Reality Labs unit, CNBC confirmed.
The company is courting developers who build games for Roblox, a virtual world gaming platform popular with kids, to build mobile experiences for Horizon Worlds, sources said.
A little over four years after Mark Zuckerberg changed Facebook's name to Meta, reflecting his view that the future of work, play and socializing was going virtual, the company is making a major course correction.
Meta this week began laying off employees focused on virtual reality within its Reality Labs division and is shutting down a number of studios that were working on VR titles, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named due to confidentiality. CNBC confirmed a report from the New York Times that layoffs, amounting to more than 1,000 jobs, will impact about 10% of the hardware division, which makes Quest VR headsets, and the Horizon Worlds virtual social network.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/01/13/meta-lays-off-vr-employees-underscoring-zuckerbergs-pivot-to-ai.html