Meta is reportedly planning to cut about 10 percent of the employees in its Reality Labs division. The layoffs could be announced as soon as Tuesday and would affect hundreds of workers, reports The New York Times. Reality Labs has around 15,000 employees and works on products such as virtual reality headsets and a VR-based social network.
While the cuts would be small compared to Meta’s total workforce of about 78,000 people, they are expected to hit the metaverse teams the hardest. One person said the final number of layoffs could end up being more than 10 percent of the division.
Not all of Reality Labs is expected to be affected. Teams working on augmented reality, including the Ray-Ban smart glasses, are likely to see fewer cuts.
Andrew Bosworth, Meta’s chief technology officer and the head of Reality Labs, has called a meeting for Wednesday and asked employees to attend in person. In a memo to staff, Bosworth described it as the “most important” meeting of the year, without giving further details.
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The planned layoffs come as Meta shifts its focus and spending toward artificial intelligence. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has asked company leaders to cut their 2026 budgets so more money can go into AI research. Meta is facing strong competition in AI from companies like OpenAI and Google, and Zuckerberg has increased funding for internal teams working on advanced AI systems.
Meta also plans to move some money away from virtual reality products and put into its wearables division. This group builds smart glasses and wristband devices. In December, a Meta spokesperson said the company was “shifting some of our investment from Metaverse toward AI glasses,” and was not planning “any broader changes.”
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Zuckerberg has long pushed the idea of the metaverse and renamed the company Meta in 2021 to reflect that vision. However, virtual reality headsets have not sold as well as hoped, despite years of heavy spending.
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