Zuckerberg shakes up Meta AI teams

CEO’s move comes amid internal turmoil

- MIKE ISAAG ELI TAN

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, has spent the past few months shaking up his company’s artificial intelligence efforts. Now he has taken further action that may compound internal turmoil over the technology.

On Tuesday, Meta announced internally that it is splitting its AI division —which is known as Meta Superintelligence Labs — into four groups, two people with knowledge of the situation said. One group will focus on AI research, one on a potentially powerful AI called “superintelligence”, another on products, and one on infrastructure such as data centres and other AI hardware, they said.

The reorganisation is likely to be the final one for some time, the people said. The moves are aimed at better organising Meta so it can get to its goal of superintelligence and develop AI products more quickly to compete with others, the people said.

Some AI executives are expected to leave, the people said. Meta is also looking at downsizing the AI division overall — which could include eliminating roles or moving employees to other parts of the company — because it has grown to thousands of people in recent years, the people said. Discussions remain fluid and no final decisions have been made on the downsizing, they said.

In what would be a shift from Meta using only its own technology to power its AI products, the company is also actively exploring using third-party artificial intelligence models to do so, the people said. That could include building on other “open-source” AI models, which are freely available, or licensing “closed-source” models from other companies.