Meta’s CTO said he was overhauling the Metaverse unit. Read the memos.

Meta reorganizes its Metaverse unit and transfers a leader who was leading efforts to its AI division.

Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth told employees in an internal memo on Monday, which was seen by Business Insider, that Gabriel Aul, who led product for its virtual worlds, Meta Horizon, and Ryan Cairns, who is in charge of Meta’s virtual reality hardware, would now lead the company’s metaverse bets.

“The priority of work on the Metaverse remains unchanged and continues to be a company-wide priority,” Bosworth wrote in the memo. “We have proven our thesis to the industry and we continue to see competitors enter this space to try to catch up. So we must continue to exploit our hard-earned advantage.”

Vishal Shah, who has helped lead his Metaverse bets for the past four years, announced in another memo that he was moving to Meta Superintelligence Labs, according to a copy of the memo seen by Business Insider.

Shah said he will take on a new role as vice president of AI products in the Products and Applied Research unit within MSL and will report directly to Nat Friedman, one of MSL’s leaders.

Meta declined to comment and confirmed the decision to Business Insider.

Read Bosworth’s full memo below.

An update to the Metaverse structure

I hope you had time to read Vishal’s update on his acceptance of a new role in MSL Product and Cross-Company Integrations within the Products and Applied Research team. I am pleased that he will oversee the integration of personal superintelligence with the FoA and RL portfolio. I am confident that his deep expertise and experience with RL will accelerate our work.

It is thanks to Vishal’s leadership over the last four years that we find ourselves well equipped to realize our vision and strategy. We already have the right leadership and team in place.

Gabriel Aul will step in to lead the Metaverse PG. Metaverse will continue to focus on creating high-quality experiences for VR and mobile. Jason Rubin, Samantha Ryan and Thamara Sekhar will report to Gabe. We will also welcome a new leader, Saxs Person, to lead the Horizon Experiences team under Gabe’s leadership.

Ryan Cairns will continue to lead Horizon OS, which will become a PG at the organizational level, and he will report directly to me. The charter and reporting structure of Horizon OS remain unchanged. They will continue to focus on building great hardware and software for the Metaverse, especially ahead of our big launches and exciting VR roadmap. Metaverse and Horizon OS will continue to work closely together to ensure an integrated product experience across our devices and platforms. Gabe and Ryan’s posts will have more on this, and you can ask me more questions on Tuesdays with Boz tomorrow.

The priority of work on the Metaverse remains unchanged and continues to be a company-wide priority. We have proven our thesis to the industry and we continue to see competitors enter this space to try to catch up. So we must continue to exploit our hard-earned advantage.

Virtual reality is evolving beyond its roots in gaming to become a broader platform for entertainment, productivity, and connection as we deepen our AI and general computing capabilities. Mobile is starting to attract younger social gamers on a larger scale and our Al creation tools are accelerating world building to create the flywheel. We have the right team and strategy in place and now we need to focus on execution.

Read the memo released by Shah on his new role below.

A new chapter: transitioning Metaverse PG into a leading product for MSL PAR

After four years at Reality Labs, I am making the difficult and exciting decision to lead the Metaverse Product Group into a new role as Vice President of AI Products and Applied Research (PAR) within Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), reports Nat Friedman. In this role, I will lead product management and oversee MSL’s integrations into the Application Family and Reality Labs. My first day will be Monday November 3rd.

Although the Metaverse hype has thankfully died down, we’ve been working hard to build it over the past few years. We laid the foundation for VR hardware, became market leaders in competitive categories and developed a very exciting roadmap to broaden appeal, investing years in our new Horizon engine to support a much higher level of competition and fidelity. We have rebuilt the avatar stack, created a new house style and will introduce photorealistic codec avatars. We’ve brought Horizon Mobile to market, have exciting Al-centric tools, and a compelling roadmap designed to make worldbuilding much easier for everyone.

This work has been truly wonderful and personally rewarding, and I am confident we have the right leadership team to take it forward. We’ll be sharing more details on what’s next for the RL and Metaverse Org groups, so stay tuned.

I truly believe Al is one of the most transformative changes of our generation, and I’m excited about the new challenge of leading Product for PAR. My experiences at Reality Labs and Instagram have shaped the way I think about creating products that connect billions of people and drive innovation. Working in so many different parts of Meta over the years will be valuable in ensuring that the work we do at Al can truly scale and bring value to the entire company.

As Mark shared at Connect this year, Al and the Metaverse are deeply intertwined, with Al enabling more personalized, contextual, and meaningful experiences. Our goal of developing personal superintelligence will help unlock new opportunities for creators, businesses, and communities across the metaverse. I plan to stay heavily involved in building bridges between MSL and RL that will allow us to shape how we deliver personal superintelligence to billions of people across all devices.

Thank you all for your continued support and for following me through this next chapter. Let’s keep building.

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