Meta Continues Heavy Investment in Metaverse Despite $50 Billion Losses

Despite incurring losses of nearly $50 billion in its metaverse business, tech giant Meta is continuing to make significant investments in virtual worlds and the metaverse, according to a company executive.

Nicola Mendelsohn, Meta's head of global business, stated on Tuesday (January 16) that the company expects it will take a decade to fully realize its metaverse vision. She also emphasized that Meta is actively investing in artificial intelligence and related hardware to support its metaverse business. This indicates that Meta's ongoing investments in artificial intelligence and other areas are laying the foundation for the development of its metaverse business.

However, when assessing performance, Meta's metaverse business can be considered disappointing. Since 2019, Meta's Reality Labs division has experienced a cumulative loss of $47 billion. The division primarily focuses on the development of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and metaverse technologies. Despite this, Mendelsohn highlighted that Reality Labs' work and Meta's advancements in artificial intelligence have been in progress for a decade.

In 2021, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg rebranded Facebook as Meta and announced in a promotional video that the company would become a "virtual world company." In April of the same year, Zuckerberg assured investors that the company would maintain its focus on virtual worlds and artificial intelligence, rather than shifting towards artificial intelligence exclusively.

However, over time, public enthusiasm for the metaverse vision has started to wane.