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

Remember the metaverse? The virtual reality world from which Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta gets its name may not be the trendy tech term it was a couple of years ago, but the company now wants workers building it to utilize 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 graphic in the note included.

“Our goal is simple yet audacious: make Al a habit, not a novelty. This means prioritizing training and adoption for everyone, so that using Al becomes second nature — just like any other tool we rely on,” Shah reportedly wrote to employees.

“I want to see [project managers], designers, and [cross-functional] partners rolling up their sleeves and building prototypes, fixing bugs, and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible,” the note continued, according to 404 Media. “I want to see us go 5X faster by eliminating the frictions that slow us down. And 5X faster to get to how our products feel much more quickly.”

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

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

While AI is today’s hyped product, it wasn’t too long ago that Meta leaned heavily into the metaverse, despite users not being really into it. Meta’s VR efforts continue to incur losses, with Meta’s Reality Labs reporting a loss of over $4 billion in the second quarter of 2025.