Metaverse team told to work ‘five times’ faster with AI

Remember the Metaverse? The virtual reality world that Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta takes its name from may not be the tech buzzword it was a few years ago, but the company now wants the workers building it to use the latest shiny tech trend: AI.

In an internal message obtained by 404 Media, Meta’s VP of Metaverse, Vishal Shah, apparently told the Metaverse team to work five times faster with AI. “Think 5X, not 5 percent,” a chart in the note says.

“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,” Shah reportedly wrote to employees.

“I want to see [project managers]designers and [cross-functional] “Partners are rolling up their sleeves and building prototypes, fixing bugs, and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible,” the memo continues, according to 404 Media. “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.”

A Meta spokesperson told Gizmodo that it is well known that this is a priority and that Meta is focused on using AI to help employees in their daily work. Mashable reported in April that Zuckerberg wanted AI to do half of Meta’s coding by 2026.

This note comes shortly after AI stole the show at the Meta Connect developer conference last month, with the launch (and botched demo) of Meta’s “AI glasses.” Meta also recently launched Vibes, an endless scroll of AI-generated videos, and continues to integrate AI into Facebook and Instagram, such as adding an “AI dating assistant” to Facebook Dating.

Although AI is today’s hot commodity, it wasn’t that long ago that Meta relied heavily on the metaverse, even though users weren’t really interested in it. Meta’s VR efforts continue to suffer losses, with Meta’s Reality Labs reporting a loss of more than $4 billion in the second quarter of 2025.