According to The Verge, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg used the company’s Q4 2025 earnings call to declare AI as the next major social media format, shifting focus from his metaverse ambitions. He stated that Meta’s apps will evolve from simple recommendation algorithms to AI that “understands” users and generates personalized content, like the new “Vibes” feed of AI videos. During the call, Zuckerberg barely mentioned metaverse goals, instead highlighting how VR investments would “pair well” with AI. This comes as Meta’s Reality Labs division, housing its metaverse efforts, reported a massive $6.02 billion operating loss for the quarter and laid off at least 1,000 employees. Meanwhile, Meta posted strong overall financials with $59.9 billion in revenue and $22.8 billion in net income for Q4 2025. Zuckerberg also confirmed plans to monetize Meta AI through subscriptions and advertising, putting premium features behind a paywall.
The Business Pivot
So here’s the thing. This isn’t just a new feature announcement. It’s a full-scale strategic retreat and redeployment. For years, Zuckerberg bet the company’s future—and renamed it—on the metaverse. Now? That vision is being quietly shelved under the guise of “pairing well” with AI. The numbers tell the real story: a $6 billion quarterly loss in Reality Labs is unsustainable, even for a cash cow like Meta’s ad business. That kind of burn rate gets investors furious. So the pivot to AI is as much a financial necessity as it is a technological vision. It’s a way to redirect Wall Street’s attention to a hotter, more immediately understandable trend. And honestly, it’s probably the right business move. The metaverse was a money pit with an uncertain payoff timeline. AI social feeds? That’s something they can roll out tomorrow and start potentially monetizing.
The New Revenue Play
Look at the language used. Zuckerberg explicitly told investors about opportunities for “subscriptions and advertising” with Meta AI. This is crucial. The core Facebook and Instagram ad engine is a magnificent, but mature, business. Growth needs new fuel. An AI that “understands” you isn’t just about a better user experience—it’s about a deeper data mine. If an AI is generating your perfect content, it knows your preferences with terrifying intimacy. That’s a premium ad-targeting layer. And subscriptions? That’s a whole new, direct revenue stream they’ve never successfully cracked. They’re looking at the ChatGPT Plus model and thinking, “We can do that, but inside the apps where people already spend hours a day.” It’s a clever, two-pronged attack on the revenue question. You can read the raw financial details in their earnings release to see the sheer scale of the core business funding this shift.
What It Actually Means For Users
Forget the “metaverse.” Your scroll is about to get weird. Zuckerberg’s talking about tapping into videos to jump inside them, or creating a game with a prompt. Sounds cool, right? But basically, he’s describing a feed that’s less about connecting with friends and more about consuming AI-generated content tailored to keep you engaged. The “Vibes” feed is just the first step. The risk here is profound: does social media stop being social? If your feed is filled with AI-generated videos, AI-written posts, and AI-designed worlds, what happens to the messy, human connection these platforms were built on? It might be more “immersive,” but it could also be more isolating. The other question is quality. AI-generated content today is often generic and soulless. An explosion of that doesn’t sound like an improvement—it sounds like spam.
A Reality Check
Let’s be skeptical for a minute. This is the same company that promised us a digital living room in the metaverse. Now it’s promising an AI best friend in our feed. Promises are easy. Execution is hard. And Meta’s track record with new, independent hardware or software experiences is… mixed. Remember the Meta Portal? Exactly. Their strength is scaling existing behaviors within their walled garden. So an AI feed that subtly changes what you see? That’s in their wheelhouse. Building believable, interactive AI worlds? I’m not holding my breath. The layoffs in the VR studios show where the real priorities lie. The metaverse dream is over. The AI social feed is the new corporate mandate. Whether users actually want it is a question they’ll figure out after they’ve built it.
