In response to employees’ concerns about Meta Platforms’ finances after its first mass layoff, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told employees that WhatsApp and Messenger would be the company’s next wave of growth.

To this comment, Zuckerberg stated at a company-wide meeting a week ago that the Facebook Messenger and Instagram apps, being so very early in monetizing relative to their parent company’s Facebook and Instagram, he, Zuckerberg, has described, citing the quotation.

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“As we work to monetize WhatsApp and Messenger more, business messaging is going to be the next major pillar of our business.” he stated.

One such app is meta, enabling some consumers to engage with businesses using the chat function and including a new feature released this week in Brazil.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday’s internal forum.

A year after announcing a long-term ambition to build out an immersive metaverse, Zuckerberg’s remarks illustrate a shift in tone and emphasis.

Several investors have been questioning whether that decision was wise in the face of Meta’s unsuccessful advertising campaign, which has caused its stock price to nearly cut in half.

The CEO played down how much the company spent on Reality Labs, its metaverse investment unit.

Mostly what it paid people accounted for a big chunk of its expenses, followed by capital expenditures. Much of that went toward infrastructure for their social media platforms and about 20% of their money went to Reality Labs.

Reality Labs has spent over half its budget on augmented reality (AR), with smart glasses products expected to emerge “over the next few years” and some “truly great” AR glasses later in the decade, Zuckerberg noted.

“This is in some ways is the most challenging work … but I also think it’s the most valuable potential part of the work over time,” he said.