Meta Platforms Inc. will invest more in and develop artificial intelligence (AI) than metaverse and NFT, given the uncertain economic conditions and future opportunities.
Heaptalk, Jakarta — Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta Platforms Inc., announced a shift in business direction to focus on developing artificial intelligence (AI), from previously metaverse and NFT.
This business shift is partly triggered by economic uncertainty in recent years. In 2022, Meta experienced a significant slowdown in growth when the world economy changed drastically and competitive pressures grew. At that time, Meta reduced budgets, shrunk its real estate footprint, and laid off 13% of its workforce.
Therefore, the technology giant is rethinking to prepare itself for the possibility that this new economic reality may continue in the following years. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that his party must take a strategy to operate its business more efficiently to maintain the company’s sustainability.
One of these strategies includes preparing a financial plan that allows Meta to invest heavily in the future. In addition, the company also expects sustainable results from more efficient business operations.
“I believe that we are working on some of the most transformative technology our industry has ever seen. Our single largest investment is in advancing AI and building it into every one of our products,” stated Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, in a letter to employees.
Reducing 10,000 employees to boost efficiency
Further, Mark said that the company has the infrastructure to carry out development on an unprecedented scale. However, he added that Meta’s work in building the metaverse and shaping the next generation of computing platforms still remains critical to determining the future of the social connection platforms Meta has built, but the entity will not spend a large portion of its financing on it.
“We do leading work across a wide range of advanced technologies and then distill that into inspiring products that improve people’s lives. We do this with AI to help you creatively express yourself and discover new content, with the metaverse to deliver a realistic sense of presence, with new media formats to create richer experiences, with encryption to let you communicate privately in more and more ways, and with business tools to help reach customers, create opportunity and grow the economy,” uttered Mark.
Along with the announcement of the business shift, Mark also informed his employees that there will be layoffs of 10,000 people and the current 5,000 job vacancies will not be continued. Mark wrote, “Our timelines for international teams will also look different, and local leaders will follow up with more details. Overall, we expect to reduce our team size by around 10,000 people and to close around 5,000 additional open roles that we haven’t yet been hired for.”
These steps are expected to be an opportunity for the company to be bolder and make decisions that other companies cannot. “I hope that giving you a timeline and principles for what to expect will help us get through the next couple of months and then move forward as we implement these changes that I believe will have a very positive impact on how we work,” concluded Mark.
