News

Meta Assembles Team to Pursue Artificial General Intelligence

• By John K. Waters
• 06/11/2025

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is forming a new team focused on achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI), amid internal dissatisfaction with the performance of its current AI offerings. The team, known internally as the superintelligence group, is part of a broader effort to enhance Meta’s AI capabilities.

Zuckerberg has held recruitment meetings with AI experts in recent weeks at his residences in Lake Tahoe and Palo Alto. According to people familiar with the matter, he plans to personally recruit about 50 engineers and researchers, including a new head of AI research. Workspaces at the company’s Menlo Park headquarters have been reorganized so that the team can sit close to Zuckerberg.

As part of the initiative, Meta is also preparing to invest billions in Scale AI, a company that provides training data and AI applications to enterprises and governments. The investment, first reported by Bloomberg News, would be Meta’s largest external funding to date. Scale AI would be valued at $28 billion, according to The Information.

Scale AI’s founder Alexandr Wang is expected to join Meta’s team once the deal closes. Based on the new valuation, Wang’s stake in Scale AI would exceed $5 billion, while co-founder Lucy Guo would also reach billionaire status. It remains unclear how the transaction would affect their ownership in the company. Meta and Scale AI declined to comment.

Zuckerberg’s renewed focus on AI follows internal criticism of Llama 4, Meta’s latest large language model. Released in April, the model did not meet expectations in usage or performance. Plans to launch a more advanced version, codenamed "Behemoth," were subsequently postponed over concerns it lacked meaningful improvements over earlier iterations, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The setback prompted Zuckerberg to take a more active role in recruitment and strategy. It has been reported that he has started a WhatsApp group chat called “Recruiting Party” with senior Meta staff to identify candidates. He is personally contacting prospects and maintaining direct communication throughout the hiring process, according to reports.

The superintelligence team is expected to drive future improvements in Meta’s AI models and features, including personalization and voice tools. While the exact relationship between this unit and existing AI teams remains unclear, internal transfers are expected.

Meta has invested tens of billions of dollars in AI infrastructure, including capital for future data centers. Zuckerberg has told prospective hires that Meta has the financial resources to support multi-gigawatt data centers without needing external funding, citing the company’s advertising business as a stable source of cash flow.

In recent weeks, Zuckerberg has hosted private discussions over meals with researchers and engineers, pitching Meta’s ability to fund long-term AI development independently of venture capital.