Meta restructures its Metaverse team, to lay off a ‘small number’ of employees

Meta Reality Labs

Back in 2020, Meta carved out a new division for its hardware and metaverse projects into Reality Labs. Now, according to a report by The Verge, Meta is restructuring Reality Labs. As per the report, the Reality Labs division will now be further divided into two groups: Metaverse and Wearables.

While Meta hasn’t confirmed the exact number, the report suggests that a small number of employees in the Reality Labs team have been laid off.

According to the report, Metaverse division will primarily focus on Oculus headsets whereas the Wearables unit will look at other wearables, including the Ray-Ban smart glasses.

Andrew Bosworth, chief technological officer, Meta sent out a memo to all Meta employees. In the memo, Bosworth noted, "We have the leading AI device on the market right now, and we are doubling down on finding strong product market fit for wearable Meta AI, building a business around it, and expanding the audience.” He further wrote, “Our north star to overlay digital content seamlessly onto the physical world remains the same but the steps on that path just got a lot more exciting.”

Bosworth also highlighted that Meta remains committed to Horizon, its virtual reality platform. “We are deeply committed to investing in Horizon as the core foundation of our social, spatial Horizon OS, and high-quality experiences for both mixed reality and mobile,” Bosworth told employees.

In the memo, Bosworth mentioned that by setting up the Reality Labs this way Meta hopes to “reduce overhead and allow people across teams to come together and execute with a more unified view of who our customers are and how we can best serve them.”