Meta Platforms Inc will close an augmented reality (AR) studio to prioritise investments in other areas, including a burgeoning artificial intelligence (AI) business.

The studio, called Meta Spark, allows developers to make digital filters that are overlaid onto videos in the company’s Facebook, Instagram and Messenger apps. It was first launched to compete with photo-sharing app Snapchat, which became popular for its image filters. The studio will shut down on Jan 14, 2025, the company said on Tuesday in a statement, though Meta will still offer AR effects that it created in-house.

“After thorough consideration, it was determined that Meta will prioritise investments in other company priorities,” the company wrote in an accompanying post. “With the decision to shut down the Meta Spark platform, we are also shifting resources to the next generation of experiences, across new form factors like glasses.”

The company lost about US$50 billion on AR and virtual reality (VR) products through January of this year. So far, its efforts to sell AR and VR devices, including headsets, have faltered. 

More recently, Meta’s focus has shifted to AI. Chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg has said that AI will be the biggest area of investment for the firm this year, and it plans to spend as much as US$40 billion on infrastructure to support the technology, including hardware, data centres and servers. 

  - Bloomberg