At the end of 2025, the technological landscape is very different from what Meta imagined when it bet its future on metaverse. There are no millions of people with virtual reality headsets at home or meetings that replace the office with a permanent digital environment. The word “metaverse” It doesn’t even figure in most conversations about technology anymore. On the other hand, artificial intelligence has taken over public debate, the economy and the daily lives of users. The focus has shifted, but Meta insists that his vision has not disappeared, it has just changed shape, a little.
You may remember when, in 2021, Facebook decided to change its name to Meta. It was not a simple branding, but a declaration of intent: Mark Zuckerberg assured that the future of the internet lay in the metaverse, a space where we could “feel present” even if we were far away. The company presented that vision as the next leap after social networks, a world in which avatars, virtual offices and a new digital economy would coexist daily. The plan sounded ambitious, almost inevitable, and Meta backed it with billions in investment.
Meta still believes in the metaverse: this time he wants to take it everywhere, literally
The big news is that the Meta metaverse no longer wants to live locked in a helmet. The company has begun to expand Horizon Worlds beyond virtual reality, bringing it to mobile and, little by little, to its own networks. Vishal Shah, vice president of metaverse, He explained it in The Verge: it’s not about doing something just mobile, but about playing and being together cross-platformwith Horizon accessible from headphones and mobile phones, and with integration tests on Facebook and Instagram. Meta seeks to make this 3D social layer accessible to anyone, without the need for specialized hardware, as a natural extension of its existing platforms.
The change is not limited to strategy, it also affects technology. Meta has developed a new graphics engine for Horizon Worlds that seeks to offer more stable worlds compatible with mobile, headset or web. In addition, it has incorporated artificial intelligence tools that assist creators in tasks such as generating objects or animating environments. At its Connect conference, the company explained that this system allows “creating five times faster” than before. It is one more step towards the automation of development, with AI as the main ally.
The commitment to the metaverse has also forced Meta to rethink its hardware. Quest helmets have gained in lightness, processing and optical quality, but the company recognizes that they are not yet devices designed to be worn all day. Now we are seeing how attention is shifting towards the Meta Ray-Ban Displaywhich include the Meta Neural Band (EMG bracelet) for gesture control.
The future of work in the metaverse, according to Meta
Meta also wants its metaverse to work beyond its own devices. That is why it launched Horizon OS, the operating system that supports its viewers and that it now offers to third parties. With this, the company seeks to replicate the Android model: a common base on which different brands can build their products. This movement fits with its commitment to interoperability and universal avatars, capable of maintaining the user’s identity regardless of the device. According to Meta, that is the necessary step for the metaverse to be truly open.
One of Meta’s great challenges is to turn the metaverse into an economically viable space. To this end, it has launched different monetization initiatives in Horizon Worlds, from the sale of digital goods to incentive programs for creators. His speech is clear: without a functional economy, there will be no metaverse that lasts. Still, Meta insists that the creation tools and technical foundations are already in place for that model to grow over time.
Since Facebook became Meta in 2021, the metaverse roadmap has gone through several stages. First came the initial enthusiasm and big promises. Then, in 2022, difficulties surfaced: internal leaks revealed that even employees were barely using Horizon Worlds. In 2023, the company tried to reactivate the project with new helmets and with the aforementioned Horizon OS. Already in 2024, the discourse changed: less bombast and more interoperability. In 2025, Meta talks about “Horizon everywhere”, a more transversal metaverse and less dependent on VR.
The big challenge for Meta continues to be adoption. Bringing Horizon to mobile phones and social networks facilitates access, but there is still a need convince users that you are worth their time. The company needs to demonstrate that the metaverse provides something useful and constant, beyond the initial curiosity. Questions also remain about interoperability between platforms and how many people actually use it. Without clear signs of growth, the feeling is that the bet is still alive, but still far from becoming a mass phenomenon.
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