Meta CTO: 2025 may be pivotal for company's AR, VR

Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, chief technology officer at Meta, said 2025 could be a pivotal year for Reality Labs, Meta’s AR and VR division.

He pointed to the recent launch of Meta’s Ray-Ban AI glasses in October 2023 as a key advancement.

These glasses have drawn attention from consumers and rivals like Google and Apple, who are also expanding in augmented reality.

Bosworth acknowledged growing competition but stressed that market adoption will ultimately decide the success of Meta’s AR and VR tech.

He noted feedback in hardware markets is often delayed, so companies must rely on internal confidence and execution.

He affirmed Meta’s commitment to its ambitious goals for the year, saying, “The progress we make this year is of disproportionate value.”

🔗 Source: TechCrunch

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ Meta’s persistence through the VR “trough of disillusionment” is finally bearing fruit

The virtual reality industry has historically followed a pattern of hype cycles, with periods of excitement followed by disappointment, dating back to early experiments like Morton Heilig’s Sensorama in the 1960s and the failed VR boom of the 1990s1.

Meta’s investment began with its $2 billion acquisition of Oculus in 2014, a startup that had revitalized consumer interest in VR with its successful Kickstarter campaign raising $2.4 million2.

Despite persistent skepticism and multi-billion dollar annual losses at Reality Labs, Meta has maintained its commitment through what industry observers recognize as a “trough of disillusionment” that followed the initial VR excitement of 2015-2016.

The Ray-Ban AI glasses represent Meta’s first AR product to achieve significant consumer traction, marking a potential inflection point after a decade of investment that saw many competitors either scale back or abandon their VR/AR initiatives entirely.

This long-term persistence mirrors Facebook’s earlier success with mobile, where the company’s initially criticized pivot to “mobile-first” eventually proved prescient as smartphone usage exploded.

2️⃣ The AR/VR market is reaching critical mass with competitors’ entry signaling market validation

The global AR/VR market is projected to grow from $43.58 billion in 2024 to $382.87 billion by 2033, representing a compound annual growth rate of 27.31%3.