Meta has discontinued its metaverse for work, too

Two months earlier it changed its sanction to “Meta,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally introduced america to his metaverse for work: Horizon Workrooms, envisioned arsenic a virtual abstraction for workers to collaborate. Today, the institution announced it’s shutting that abstraction down: “Meta has made the determination to discontinue Workrooms arsenic a standalone app, effective February 16, 2026,” sounds the statement tucked distant connected a thief page.

Meta will besides nary longer waste its headsets and package arsenic a work for businesses, another thief page reads: “We are stopping income of Meta Horizon managed services and commercialized SKUs of Meta Quest, effective February 20, 2026.”

Meta conscionable laid off astir 10 percent of its full Reality Labs division, complete 1,000 jobs. In the aftermath, it’s becoming progressively clear that Zuckerberg has changed his mind astir what the connection “metaverse” really means. Mobile yes, smart glasses yes, but possibly not VR.

What’s next, Horizon Worlds? Maybe Meta will tie the statement there, because it’s 1 of the fewer VR experiences Meta has made disposable connected mobile phones too; Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth already said the company’s Horizon squad will “double down connected bringing the champion Horizon experiences and AI creator devices to mobile” successful a memo obtained by Bloomberg.

Bloomberg writes that “Meta will proceed to create the metaverse, but pinch a attraction connected mobile phones alternatively of the afloat immersive VR headsets that the institution initially imagined.” To beryllium clear, the word “metaverse” was coined by Snow Crash writer Neal Stephenson to picture a afloat immersive shared VR world, but I suppose mobile makes consciousness if you see Fortnite to beryllium a metaverse and don’t request the “fully immersive” part.

It stings for existent believers in Oculus VR, though, and for those who thought much would travel retired of Facebook buying up each those VR crippled studios. But it seems the superior assemblage for Meta’s VR headsets are young teens and kids now, and truthful possibly business-to-business VR isn’t wherever the resources should go.

It appears that Meta Workrooms will unopen down abruptly connected February 16th, to the constituent that “any information associated pinch Workrooms will beryllium deleted.” The institution recommends trying Arthur, Microsoft Teams and Zoom Workplace instead, and besides writes that the Meta Quest Remote Desktop app will instrumentality astir if you want to emulate aggregate virtual monitors successful your headset.

For Meta Horizon managed services, the institution writes that existing customers tin proceed to entree those done January 4th, 2030, and that licenses will beryllium free aft February 16th of this year.