Meta Platforms is shutting down Workplace, the enterprise version of Facebook that it once hoped might rival Slack and other office productivity tools.

Workplace will be phased out over the next two years and will remain operational until the end of August 2025, according to a company spokesman. The service operated much like the original Facebook social network, but let people have separate accounts for their work interactions. Workplace had as many as seven million total paying subscribers in May 2021.

“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,” the spokesman said in a statement. The company said it will help existing customers transition to Zoom Video Communications’ Workvivo product, a similar enterprise-focused social network, over the next few years.

Meta once had ambitious plans for Workplace and viewed it as a way to make money through subscriptions as well as a chance to extend Facebook’s reach by infusing the product into work and office settings. At one point, Meta touted a list of high-profile customers, including Starbucks, Walmart and Spotify Technology.

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

Workplace will continue to exist internally at Meta for company employees, who use the product for everyday collaboration with colleagues. Even after Workplace is shut down in August 2025, customers will have access to their data until the end of May 2026, Meta said. — (c) 2024 Bloomberg LP