If there’s one factor Mark Zuckerberg has confirmed over the previous 5 years, it’s that he’s not afraid to burn money for a long-term guess. And proper now, that future nonetheless appears loads like a pair of glasses.
At Meta Join 2025, the CEO doubled down (once more) on his imaginative and prescient that prolonged actuality (XR) will finally substitute the smartphone. However as Meta’s newest earnings present, that dream continues to return with a staggering price ticket.
Billions Down the Rabbit Gap
Meta’s Actuality Labs division, residence of their Meta Quest headsets and Ray-Ban AI sensible glasses, reported an working lack of $4.4 billion for the third quarter. The division pulled in $470 million in gross sales, beating Wall Avenue’s estimates however doing little to melt the affect of a cumulative $70 billion in losses since late 2020.
Zuckerberg’s Lengthy-Time period Wager
As Meta Join 2025 demonstrated, Zuckerberg is betting massive on the way forward for augmented actuality wearables. AI-enabled sensible glasses had been the star of the present, with the corporate saying the subsequent era of their Ray-Ban collaboration, in addition to a brand new Oakley partnership. Meta is betting that sensible glasses will finally substitute smartphones fully, a imaginative and prescient seemingly shared by Samsung and Apple. Regardless of the numerous losses, Zuckerberg is enjoying the lengthy recreation, hoping that the market will catch on to their tech.
Zuckerberg:
“Everybody who has glasses is fairly shortly going to improve to sensible glasses over the subsequent decade… and a whole lot of different individuals who aren’t carrying glasses as we speak are going to finish up carrying them, too.”
A Glimmer of Hope Behind the Lenses
The excellent news? Meta’s new Ray-Ban Meta Show glasses look like its first actual hit. Launched in September, the glasses include an built-in show and a neural wristband that reads refined hand alerts – a leap towards Zuckerberg’s oft-repeated dream of “invisible computing.” Their earlier collaboration offered a powerful 2 million items, albeit at a extra aggressive worth of $299. It proves individuals need wearable tech – they simply wish to look regular whereas doing it.
It’s a refined however necessary shift. The hype round digital worlds has cooled, however the tech underpinning them – sensors, shows, neural interfaces – is discovering new life in AI-driven client {hardware}. As an alternative of coaxing individuals into digital areas, Meta appears to be bringing digital intelligence into the bodily world.
The Metaverse Rebranded
Maybe the clearest signal of Meta’s strategic pivot got here quietly this week: Vishal Shah, the chief who had been main the corporate’s metaverse efforts, has been reassigned to Superintelligence Labs as VP of AI merchandise. In company converse, that’s a reshuffling. In business phrases, it’s a rebrand.
Meta doesn’t wish to speak about “the metaverse” anymore – not as a result of it’s lifeless, however as a result of it’s evolving. The identical applied sciences that when powered Horizon Worlds now drive sensible glasses that perceive their setting, acknowledge objects, and gel with individuals’s day-to-day workflows. If the metaverse was about immersion, this new chapter is about integration.
The Multi-Billion Greenback Query
Meta’s XR story continues to be one in every of huge funding and unsure reward. But this quarter gives the faintest trace that the tide could also be turning. Shoppers are starting to purchase – not simply consider – in Zuckerberg’s lengthy recreation.
The query is how lengthy that recreation can final earlier than traders lose persistence. With $70 billion sunk into Actuality Labs and profitability nowhere in sight, even a wildly profitable AI glasses launch won’t steadiness the books anytime quickly.
Simply don’t anticipate Zuckerberg to blink first…
