Meta to cut about 10% of Reality Labs staff as it shifts spending to AI

Meta plans to cut around 10 percent of employees in its Reality Labs division, which works on products including the metaverse, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions. The layoffs are set to be announced this week and could be announced as soon as Tuesday, the people said.

Reality Labs has roughly 15,000 employees; the cuts would be a fraction of Meta’s total workforce of 78,000 but are set to disproportionately affect those in the metaverse unit who work on virtual reality headsets and a V.R.-based social network, the people said. One person cautioned the reductions could end up affecting more than 10 percent of the division.

Andrew Bosworth, who oversees Reality Labs, has called a company meeting for Wednesday and urged staff to attend in person, saying the meeting was the "most important" of the year in a memo obtained by The New York Times. Company leaders have been shifting priorities toward building next‑generation artificial intelligence.

Mark Zuckerberg asked top executives last year to make cuts to their 2026 budgets while increasing funding for AI research, including the TBD Lab that aims to build superintelligence. Meta also plans to reallocate some money from virtual reality products to boost its wearables budget and expects to invest tens of billions on data centers; investors have grown wary of the company’s heavy spending.

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Tech, Meta, Reality Labs, Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Bosworth, Tbd Lab