{"id":817,"date":"2025-12-11T05:54:26","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T21:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/11\/meta-is-reportedly-working-on-a-new-ai-model-called-avocado-and-it-might-not-be-open-source\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T05:54:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T21:54:26","slug":"meta-is-reportedly-working-on-a-new-ai-model-called-avocado-and-it-might-not-be-open-source","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/11\/meta-is-reportedly-working-on-a-new-ai-model-called-avocado-and-it-might-not-be-open-source\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta is reportedly working on a new AI model called &#8216;Avocado&#8217; and it might not be open source"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mark Zuckerberg has for months <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/ai\/is-mark-zuckerberg-flip-flopping-on-open-source-ai-231310567.html\" data-i13n=\"cpos:1;pos:1\">publicly hinted<\/a> that he is backing away from open-source AI models. Now, Meta&#8217;s latest AI pivot is starting to come into focus. The company is reportedly working on a new model, known inside of Meta as &#8220;Avocado,&#8221; which could mark a major shift away from its previous open-source approach to AI development.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Both <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"no-affiliate-link link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/12\/09\/meta-avocado-ai-strategy-issues.html\" data-i13n=\"elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:2;pos:1\">CNBC<\/a> and <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2025-12-10\/inside-meta-s-pivot-from-open-source-to-money-making-ai-model\" data-i13n=\"cpos:3;pos:1\"><em>Bloomberg<\/em><\/a><em> <\/em>have reported on Meta&#8217;s plans surrounding &#8220;Avocado,&#8221; with both outlets saying the model &#8220;could&#8221; be proprietary rather than open-source. Avocado, which is due out sometime in 2026, is being worked on inside of &#8220;TBD,&#8221; a smaller group within Meta&#8217;s AI Superintelligence Labs that&#8217;s headed up by\u00a0 Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, who apparently favors closed models.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not clear what Avocado could mean for Llama. Earlier this year, Zuckerberg said he expected Meta would &#8220;continue to be a leader&#8221; in open source but that it wouldn&#8217;t &#8220;open source everything that we do.&#8221; He&#8217;s also cited safety concerns as they relate to superintelligence.\u00a0As both <em>CNBC<\/em> and <em>Bloomberg<\/em> note, Meta&#8217;s shift has also been driven by issues surrounding the release of Llama 4. The Llama 4 &#8220;Behemoth&#8221; model has been <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/ai\/metas-behemoth-llama-4-model-might-still-be-months-away-221240585.html\" data-i13n=\"cpos:4;pos:1\">delayed for months<\/a>; <em>The New York Times<\/em> <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"no-affiliate-link link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/07\/14\/technology\/meta-superintelligence-lab-ai.html\" data-i13n=\"elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:5;pos:1\">reported<\/a> earlier this year that Wang and other execs had &#8220;discussed abandoning&#8221; it altogether. And developers have reportedly been unimpressed with the Llama 4 models that are available.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There have been other shakeups within the ranks of Meta&#8217;s AI groups as Zuckerberg has <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/big-tech\/meta-invests-148-billion-in-scale-ai-and-recruits-its-ceo-130029612.html\" data-i13n=\"cpos:6;pos:1\">spent billions<\/a> of dollars building a team dedicated <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/ai\/mark-zuckerberg-shares-a-confusing-vision-for-ai-superintelligence-153944322.html\" data-i13n=\"cpos:7;pos:1\">to superintelligence<\/a>. The company laid off <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"no-affiliate-link link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/10\/22\/meta-layoffs-ai.html\" data-i13n=\"elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:8;pos:1\">several hundred<\/a> workers from its Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) unit. And Meta veteran and Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun, who has been a proponent for open-source and skeptical of LLMs, recently announced he was <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/ai\/metas-chief-ai-scientist-is-leaving-the-company-after-12-years-224325268.html\" data-i13n=\"cpos:9;pos:1\">leaving<\/a> the company.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That Meta may now be pursuing a closed AI model is a significant shift for Zuckerberg, who just last year said &#8220;<a target=\"_blank\" class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/mark-zuckerberg-says-fck-that-to-closed-platforms-235700788.html\" data-i13n=\"cpos:10;pos:1\">fuck that<\/a>&#8221; about closed platforms and penned a lengthy memo titled &#8220;Open Source AI is the Path Forward.&#8221; But the notoriously competitive CEO is also apparently intensely worried about falling behind OpenAI, Google and other rivals. Meta has said it expects to spend <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/ai\/meta-says-it-will-invest-600-billion-in-the-us-with-ai-data-centers-front-and-center-195000377.html\" data-i13n=\"cpos:11;pos:1\">$600 billion<\/a> over the next few years to fund its AI ambitions. <\/p>\n\n<p>This article originally appeared on Engadget at https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/ai\/meta-is-reportedly-working-on-a-new-ai-model-called-avocado-and-it-might-not-be-open-source-215426778.html?src=rss<\/p><p>Please credit: <a href=\"https:\/\/obagg.com\">OBA Blog<\/a> &raquo; <a href=\"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/11\/meta-is-reportedly-working-on-a-new-ai-model-called-avocado-and-it-might-not-be-open-source\/\">Meta is reportedly working on a new AI model called &#8216;Avocado&#8217; and it might not be open source<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mark Zuckerberg has for months publicly hinted that he is backing away from open-source AI models. Now, Meta&#8217;s latest AI pivot is starting to come into focus. The company is reportedly working on a new model, known inside of Meta as &#8220;Avocado,&#8221; which could mark a major shift away from its previous open-source approach to AI development.\u00a0 Both CNBC and Bloomberg have reported on Meta&#8217;s plans surrounding &#8220;Avocado,&#8221; with both outlets saying the model &#8220;could&#8221; be proprietary rather than open-source. Avocado, which is due out sometime in 2026, is being worked on inside of &#8220;TBD,&#8221; a smaller group within Meta&#8217;s AI Superintelligence Labs that&#8217;s headed up by\u00a0 Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, who apparently favors closed models. It&#8217;s not clear what Avocado could mean for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-share"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}