Meta Tells Its Metaverse Workers to Use AI to ‘Go 5X Faster’

A leader of Meta in charge of building the company’s Metaverse products told employees they should use AI to “go 5x faster” according to an internal message obtained by 404 Media.

“Metaverse AI4P: Think 5X, not 5%,” reads the post by Vishal Shah, VP of Metaverse of Meta (AI4P is AI for Productivity). The idea is that programmers should use AI to work five times more efficiently than they currently do, not just to scale to 5 percent more efficiently.

“Our goal is simple but bold: make Al a habit, not a novelty. That means prioritizing training and adoption by everyone, so that using Al becomes second nature, like any other tool we rely on,” the post reads. “It also means integrating Al into every major code base and workflow.” Shah added that this doesn’t just apply to engineers. “I want to see the PMs, the designers and [cross functional] partners roll up their sleeves and build prototypes, fix bugs, and push the boundaries of what’s possible,” he wrote. “I want to see us go 5x faster by eliminating the friction that slows us down. And 5x faster to get the feel of our products much faster. Imagine a world where anyone can quickly prototype an idea and where feedback loops are measured in hours, not weeks. This is the future we are building.

Metaverse’s products, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg renamed the company to highlight, have been a colossal waste of time and money, with the company spending tens of billions of dollars to develop a product that relatively few people use.

Zuckerberg has explained at length that he expects AI agents to write most of Meta’s code in the next 12 to 18 months. The company also recently decided that candidates would be allowed to use AI as part of their coding tests during job interviews. But Shah’s message highlights a fear that workers have had for some time: Bosses don’t just expect to replace workers with AI, they expect those who continue to use AI to become much more efficient. The implicit assumption is that work done by skilled humans without AI is simply not enough.

Currently, most tech giants are putting AI to work in their workforce. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told employees in July that he expects AI to completely transform how the company operates and lead to job losses. “Over the next few years, we expect this to reduce our overall workforce as we achieve efficiencies through the extensive use of AI across the business,” he said.