• by Colin Kirkland , Yesterday

Similar to last year’s restructuring of Reality Labs, Meta has decided to divide its AI team -- forming two separate units in order to build and release its next generation of products and features at a faster rate, according to a report by Axios. 

An internal memo sent out to Meta employees on Tuesday describes the split, which consists of an AI products team focused on the tech giant’s AI assistant, AI Studio and AI features implemented across Meta’s family of social apps.

One priority of the products team involves an AI app that Meta hopes will rival popular AI platforms such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude, by utilizing user data findings that the company has collected over the years via its social media apps, used by about half the world’s population.

The AGI Foundations unit, on the other hand, will be tasked with working on Meta’s Llama models and various technologies associated with the further development of AI’s reasoning, vocal and multimedia functionality. 

According to Axios, FAIR -- Meta’s Fundamental AI Research division -- will remain separate from the AI restructuring, with only one of its multimedia team transitioning over to the AGI Foundations unit.

While Meta’s Reality Labs was restructured into “Wearables” and “Metaverse” divisions in order to highlight for investors the success of the company’s Ray-Ban Smart Glasses, opposed to metaverse projects like Horizon Worlds, this division split is Meta’s answer to tightening competition with other tech giants developing similar AI tools and wearables.

With the move, the tech giant is attempting to beat other companies to the punch.