Meta Is Shuttering Workplace, your business version of Facebook

(Bloomberg) — Meta Platforms Inc. is shutting down Workplace, the enterprise version of Facebook that it once hoped could rival Slack and other office productivity tools.

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Workplace will be phased out over the next two years and will remain operational until the end of August 2025, according to a company spokesperson. The service worked similarly to the original Facebook social network, but allowed people to have separate accounts for their work interactions. Workplace has up to 7 million paying subscribers as of May 2021.

“We are discontinuing Workplace from Meta so that we can focus on building AI and metaverse technologies that we believe will fundamentally reshape the way we work,” the spokesperson said in a statement. The company said it will help existing customers transition to Zoom Video Communications Inc.’s Workvivo product, a similar enterprise-focused social network, in the coming years.

TechCrunch first reported Meta’s plan to close Workplace.

Meta already had ambitious plans for Workplace and saw it as a way to make money through subscriptions, as well as a chance to broaden Facebook’s reach by infusing the product into work and office environments. At one point, Meta released a list of high-profile clients, including Starbucks Corp., Walmart Inc. and Spotify Technology SA.

The company will continue to focus on workplace-related products, a spokesperson said, but in other areas, such as the metaverse, building features for the company’s Quest VR headsets.

Workplace will continue to exist internally at Meta for the company’s employees, who use the product for daily collaboration with colleagues. Even after Workplace shuts down in August 2025, customers will have access to their data until the end of May 2026, Meta said.

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