Dive Brief:
- Meta plans to shutter its collaboration suite Workplace by 2026 as it shifts its attention to building AI and the metaverse, the company said Tuesday. Axios first reported the news.
- "Over the next two years, we will provide our Workplace customers the option to transition to Zoom’s Workvivo product, Meta's only preferred migration partner," the company said in an email to CIO Dive Tuesday.
- Customers will be able to use the platform as usual until Aug. 31, 2025. After that date, the platform will only let users view or download data until May 31, 2026, when it will permanently shut down.
Dive Insight:
The collaboration software space roiled in recent years, as ongoing adoption turned into a frenzy in 2020. With companies on a slow but persistent path back to the office, growth has since significantly slowed for most providers.
Meta's Workplace first launched in 2016, at the time a spin-off version of an internal tool called Facebook at Work. By 2021, the company attracted 7 million users to the platform, including enterprise customers, such as Walmart and Deliveroo.
As Workplace winds down, Meta will turn its focus to other enterprise tools within its portfolio, such as Quest for Business, Remote Desktop, Events and Meetings. The company has also worked to develop enterprise-grade LLMs, including its open source family of models, Llama.
Much like Meta, Zoom has turned its attention to fueling the potential growth behind AI tools. In March, the company launched Zoom Workplace, an AI-powered collaboration platform.
The provider is working to customize and monetize enterprise use of its generative AI assistant, Zoom AI Companion, CEO Eric Yuan said in a recent earnings call.
Meta plans to support user transition toward Zoom's Workvivo system, and will offer tools for customers making the switch.
