Meta переводит акценты: сокращение финансирования метавселенной и новое внимание к ИИ Translation: Meta Shifts Focus: Cutting Metaverse Funding and New Emphasis on AI

Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg is set to make substantial cuts to the funding of the metaverse division, which he previously referred to as the company’s future and the reason behind Facebook’s rebranding. This information comes from a report by Bloomberg citing insider sources.

According to the agency, the company’s leadership is considering a 30% reduction in the budget for Reality Labs, the division responsible for developing the metaverse, including the Horizon Worlds platform and the Quest VR headset line.

Such a significant budget cut could lead to job losses, although a final decision has yet to be made, Bloomberg noted.

Investors have reacted positively to this news.

Last month, Zuckerberg held a series of meetings in Hawaii focused on budget planning for 2026. The company leader ordered a 10% reduction in expenses across all areas, describing this as a standard optimization measure.

The team working on the metaverse has been asked to implement deeper budget cuts due to the company «not facing the anticipated competition.» Since the initiative’s launch in 2021, the total losses for this division have exceeded $70 billion.

Zuckerberg has stopped mentioning the metaverse during the company’s earnings reports, instead shifting his focus to artificial intelligence and hardware solutions like Meta’s smart glasses with Ray-Ban.

Meta has strengthened its emphasis on customer support by launching a centralized help center for Facebook and Instagram users.

The corporation acknowledged that previous measures «have not always met expectations.»

The new platform offers tools for reporting issues and recovering account access. Users will also benefit from AI-powered search responses.

This new feature is available in iOS and Android applications for users worldwide.

The new AI assistant is designed to provide more personalized assistance. The company highlighted that the use of technology has enhanced account security and reduced the number of hacks by over 30%.

AI is employed to combat phishing and detect suspicious logins. It also helps prevent erroneous account suspensions and accelerates the appeals process.

However, thousands of users are expressing dissatisfaction, stating that they lost access to their accounts due to errors on Meta’s part, linking incidents to improper algorithm functionality.

As the suspensions affect businesses, those impacted have threatened legal action. The situation has escalated to the point where a community has emerged on Reddit to coordinate lawsuits against the corporation.

The company believes that the new support center will improve the situation by providing a centralized and optimized account recovery process. The system is expected to deliver more accurate notifications about suspicious activity and recognize account holders’ devices more effectively.

Meta is facing legal challenges in the EU.

The European Commission has initiated an antitrust investigation concerning the exclusive integration of Meta AI’s chatbot into WhatsApp.

In October, the company altered its policy regarding business APIs, prohibiting the use of general-purpose chatbots in the application. These changes will take effect in January but will not affect customer support tools.

«As a result of the new policy, competing AI providers may lose the ability to reach their customers through WhatsApp,» the regulator stated.

It is important to note that in September, the US Federal Trade Commission announced the beginning of an investigation into seven tech companies producing chatbots for minors: Alphabet, Character.AI, Instagram, Meta, OpenAI, Snap, and xAI.