Meta will cut funding for the Reality Labs division responsible for hardware and software development of the metaverse corporation by 20%. This is stated in the material The Information.
According to sources of the publication, the budget of the division will be reduced in the period from 2024 to 2026, while most of the reduction will take place in the coming months.
This does not mean the cessation of developments in the field of virtual and augmented reality. Meta plans to release new Quest VR headsets and Ray-Ban AR glasses over the next three years, the journalists reported.
Analysts at Bank of America believe that cost-cutting measures will allow the company to save about $3 billion.
In April, Meta reported revenue of $36.5 billion for the first quarter of 2024. This is 27% more than $28.6 billion a year earlier. However, Reality Labs lost approximately $3.8 billion over the same period, generating revenue of $440 million.
During a speech on the results of the first three months of the year, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of the corporation, said that "an increasing part of Reality Labs' forces is being directed to artificial intelligence services."
Despite the difficult situation, over the last three months of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, the division managed to reduce losses by 17%. In total, since its founding in 2019, Reality Labs has lost about $55 billion.
Meta's plans for AI and the metaverse are likely to become clearer after the company's second-quarter earnings report, which is scheduled for publication on July 31.
Earlier, the corporation published a vacancy for integrating AI into VR and AR games. Meta plans to bring more generative artificial intelligence technologies to entertainment projects.
Recall that in June, Meta announced the integration of AI characters on Instagram.
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