As the AI race among Big Tech firms heats up, Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg announced the formation of a new top-level product group focused on generative artificial intelligence (AI).
AI has emerged as a bright spot for investments in the tech industry, which has been struggling with slowing growth and has cut thousands of jobs, as well as scaled back on experimental bets, in order to weather the downturn.
“We’re starting by bringing together many of the teams across the company working on generative AI into one group focused on building delightful experiences around this technology,” Zuckerberg said in an Instagram post.
“In the long run, we’ll focus on developing AI personas that can help people in a variety of ways,” Zuckerberg said, but for now “we’re exploring experiences with text (chat in WhatsApp and Messenger), images (creative Instagram filters and ad formats), video, and multi-modal experiences.”
A company spokesperson confirmed that Ahmad Al-Dahle will lead the new product team, which will report to Chris Cox, Meta’s chief product officer. According to the spokesperson, this will allow Meta to quickly incorporate the AI research team’s findings into Meta’s products.
The public battle for dominance in the AI technology space began late last year with the launch of Microsoft-backed (MSFT.O) OpenAI’s ChatGPT, prompting tech titans ranging from Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) to China’s Baidu Inc (9888. HK) to announce their own offerings.
Last week, Facebook-parent Meta announced the release of LLaMA, the core software of a new AI system, under a non-commercial license to researchers and entities affiliated with government, civil society, and academia.
Meta Platforms’ stock fell 0.5% on Monday.
