Exclusive: Meta shuffles AI team to compete with OpenAI and Google
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Meta is restructuring its AI teams to speed up the rollout of new products and features, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: Meta faces stiff competition in the AI race, including from OpenAI and Google as well as Chinese rivals such as TikTok parent ByteDance.
Driving the news: In an internal memo sent Tuesday and seen by Axios, chief product officer Chris Cox laid out the new structure, which will see efforts divided into two teams: an AI products team, headed by Connor Hayes, and an AGI Foundations unit, co-led by Ahmad Al-Dahle and Amir Frenkel.
- The AI products team will be responsible for the Meta AI assistant, Meta's AI Studio and AI features within Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
- The AGI Foundations unit will cover a range of technologies, including the company's Llama models, as well as efforts to improve capabilities in reasoning, multimedia and voice.
- The company's AI research unit, known as FAIR (Fundamental AI Research), remains separate from the new organizational structure, though one specific team working on multimedia is moving to the new AGI Foundations team.
Between the lines: No executives are leaving as part of the changes, nor are any jobs being cut, though the company has moved in some leaders from other parts of the company.
- Meta hopes that splitting a single large organization into smaller teams will speed product development and give the company more flexibility as it adds additional technical leaders.
- The company is also seeing key talent depart, including to French rival Mistral, as reported by Business Insider.
What they're saying: "Our new structure aims to give each org more ownership while minimizing (but making explicit) team dependencies," Cox said in the memo.
Flashback: Meta reshuffled its AI teams in 2023 with a similar goal of speeding its efforts.
