- Meta is developing personal AI agents to boost its productivity, starting with an assistant for its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.
- The company’s pivot in AI comes right after abandoning its approximately $80 billion metaverse venture.
Fresh from the long-overdue realization that its metaverse dream is dead, Meta has finally begun pivoting into artificial intelligence (AI). One of its first orders of work revolves around the development of AI agents, and among its initial specimens features an AI double for its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Personal AI Agent
According to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), citing “a person familiar with the project,” Zuckerberg has ordered Meta’s AI division to build personal AI agents for people in and out of the company. The CEO has even started developing one for himself to assist him in his leadership role.
The source claimed that Meta is already experimenting with Zuckerberg’s personal AI agent. It aims to help the CEO retrieve information faster, which are typically distributed across multiple people within the corporate hierarchy.
The business’s goal is to accelerate productivity across its 78,000 workforce by streamlining its layers of organizational structure. Additionally, it expects the measure to maintain its competitiveness against AI-native startups with much smaller staffs but with highly efficient operations.
The decision aligns with Zuckerberg’s January earnings call speech, in which he highlighted the company’s huge bet on AI-native tooling “so individuals at Meta can get more done.”
It’s not the first time that Zuckerberg has employed AI, though. In 2016, he installed an AI system with natural language processing, similar to Marvel Iron Man’s signature Jarvis AI assistant. However, its scope was limited to automating some functions of his smart home rather than for decision-making.
Metaverse Project Abandonment
After investing around $80 billion in the metaverse niche, Meta has finally called it quits. The company notably issued multiple ultimatums to its metaverse division after failing to justify the billions it had spent on R&D and projects that consistently struggled to gain significant market momentum.
As a last-ditch effort, Meta’s metaverse venture showed some spark of hope when the social media giant acquired a significant stake in Scale AI. Industry watchers expected the move to boost its ailing metaverse division, while raising its potential utility in military applications.
However, from the looks of it, Meta has put the nail in the coffin on its metaverse projects in favor of going all-in on AI.
