Meta’s Avocado isn’t ripe quite yet. The company has reportedly delayed the release of its next-generation foundational model until May, according to The New York Times, citing unnamed sources. The model has fallen short “on internal tests for reasoning, coding and writing,” compared with rival models from Google, OpenAI and Anthropic.
Meta has spent billions of dollars overhauling its efforts to build artificial intelligence models and products, including purchasing a stake in Alexandr Wang’s startup for $14.3 billion to make him chief AI officer. The company has poured buckets of cash into hiring top AI engineers last year across its organization. In a January earnings call, Meta confirmed it plans to raise its spending from $72 billion last year to $115 billion to $135 billion, attributing the increase to supporting its AI labs. But all that money hasn’t bought the company the results it hoped for, with Google, OpenAI and Anthropic consistently lapping Meta with their newer models.
A Meta spokesperson told CNET, “As we’ve said publicly, our next model will be good, but more importantly, show the rapid trajectory we’re on, and then we’ll steadily push the frontier over the course of the year as we continue to release new models. We’re excited for people to see what we’ve been cooking very soon.”
That rapid trajectory is key to catch up and keep pace with other AI builders. Google leapfrogged its rivals in November with its Gemini 3 model, showcasing its impressive coding and research abilities. OpenAI was quick to follow with updates to GPT-5. More recently, Claude Code and Cowork from Anthropic have proven to be the most reliable agentic AI available, tools that can handle tasks without human babysitting. However, the biggest AI news from Meta this year is that it’s buying Moltbook, a social media platform designed exclusively for AI bots.
Meta has been in the news for other reasons. A renewed wave of privacy concerns has crested over people using smart glasses, particularly the Meta Ray-Ban glasses, to record others without their knowledge or consent. A lawsuit alleges that human staffers behind Meta’s smart glasses reviewed footage of people who clearly didn’t know they were being recorded, like while they were undressing or having sex. On the social media side of the business, a high-profile trial is debating whether platforms like Meta’s Instagram and Facebook are addictive to teens and pose significant health risks.
