Meta suffers another AI setback as it delays launching its latest model

Avocado was supposed to show that Meta’s superintelligence push was paying off. But now it’s late, and Gemini may fill the gap

Meta $META’s latest AI fruit is ripening on company time. The New York Times reported Thursday that Meta has pushed back Avocado — the text model meant to headline CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s latest and greatest AI reset — from a planned March debut to at least May after internal testing showed it trailing the leading systems from Google $GOOGL, OpenAI, and Anthropic on, essentially, everything: reasoning, coding, and writing.

That’s another ugly moment for a company that has spent lavishly to convince investors, employees, and Silicon Valley that it could buy its way back into the front rank of AI. In January, Zuckerberg told investors that Meta’s first new models would be “good” and would show the “rapid trajectory” the company was on. That same month, the company said it expects 2026 capital expenditures of $115 billion to $135 billion, with the increase driven in part by Meta Superintelligence Labs. But writing giant checks and building giant data centers still doesn’t guarantee a place in the top tier of the model race. 

The Times, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, reported that Avocado........

© Quartz