It is now quite clear that Facebook is serious about leading virtual and augmented reality. A Facebook report further states that Facebook establishes that entrenched technologies are the future of computers The information claims that the company currently employs almost 10,000 people to work on AR / VR.
The report maintains that this number is staggering one fifth of Facebook’s total workforce worldwide. According to information obtained by Statista, the company has doubled its staff size since 2017 and increased to approximately 58,000 employees in 2020.
Granted, the report does not go into specifics; the 10k number probably reflects a wide range of devices and services outside of Oculus Quest, the Aria AR efforts project and the Ray-Ban glasses built in collaboration with Luxottica.
Teams dedicated to research, development, manufacturing, communications, public relations – all the necessities that a Facebook-sized business needs can probably play into the 10,000s. It also includes projects like Portal, its development in AI, and even first-party VR game studios like Sanzaru, Beat Games and Ready at Dawn.
Suppose this is true, none of this really comes as a surprise. Facebook has been far ahead with its intention to own the space since acquiring Oculus in 2014 for $ 2 billion. Following the subsequent integration of its VR brand Oculus into the mother ship, Facebook has opened Facebook Reality Labs, the company’s AR / VR skunk works. At the time of this writing, Facebook Reality Labs has more than 800 open works that include augmented reality, virtual reality, brain-computer interfaces, and artificial intelligence.