(Credit: Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Meta will shut down its business-focused Workplace social network next year as it continues its shift to AI and the metaverse.
"We are discontinuing Workplace from Meta so we can focus on building AI and metaverse technologies that we believe will fundamentally reshape the way we work," says a Meta spokesperson. "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."
It's business as usual on Workplace until Aug. 31, 2025, at which point you can no longer post. You'll then have until May 31, 2026, to view or download any data you want from your account. After that, accounts will be terminated and information deleted. From Sept. 1, 2024, until Aug. 31, 2025, customers will get a 50% discount.
Workplace debuted almost a decade ago as Facebook at Work. After operating in beta for about two years, it emerged as Workplace and positioned itself as an alternative to other business communication tools, like Trello and Slack. Facebook promoted Workplace as a useful way for those in non-traditional offices to stay in touch—helping retail workers, ship crews, or baristas stay connected from a phone or tablet, for example.
In the end, however, it was just a version of Facebook that swapped memes and updates from high school classmates with posts about company holidays, quarterly earnings, and the like. In our review from 2017, we noted that it didn't "offer much from a productivity perspective."