Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'

(RTTNews) - Meta's (META) chief artificial intelligence scientist, Yann LeCun, plans to leave the company to launch his own AI start-up, marking a major shift inside Meta as CEO Mark Zuckerberg doubles down on "superintelligence" initiatives to compete with OpenAI and Google, according to people familiar with the matter.

LeCun, a Turing Award-winning pioneer of modern AI, has begun early fundraising discussions for his new venture, which will focus on developing "world models," next-generation systems designed to learn from visual and spatial data rather than text. These models aim to replicate human reasoning and understanding of the physical world, a project LeCun has said could take a decade to mature.

LeCun's exit comes amid an internal overhaul of Meta's AI strategy. Zuckerberg has shifted Meta's Fundamental AI Research Lab - FAIR, which LeCun founded in 2013, away from long-term research toward commercial AI products and large language models - LLMs. The move follows the underwhelming release of Meta's Llama 4 model, which lagged behind rival offerings from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI.

To accelerate progress, Zuckerberg recently hired Alexandr Wang, founder of Scale AI, paying $14.3 billion for a 49 percent stake in his company and appointing him to lead Meta's new Superintelligence division, to which LeCun now reports. The CEO also formed an elite team called TBD Lab, offering $100 million pay packages to lure top AI talent from competitors.

LeCun has publicly disagreed with Zuckerberg's heavy reliance on LLMs, calling them "useful but fundamentally limited" in their ability to reason and plan like humans. His upcoming start-up will extend his FAIR research into "world models" that could ultimately enable machines to think more like people.

LeCun's planned departure adds to a series of AI leadership shake-ups at Meta. In recent months, Joelle Pineau, vice-president of AI research, left for Cohere, and the company laid off 600 employees from its AI division. Meanwhile, Shengjia Zhao, co-creator of ChatGPT, joined Meta as chief scientist of the Superintelligence Lab.

The upheaval follows investor pressure after Meta's shares plunged 12.6% in late October, wiping out nearly $240 billion in market value, when Zuckerberg indicated that AI spending could exceed $100 billion next year.

LeCun's move signals both a philosophical and structural rift within Meta's AI program, and the emergence of a potential new rival in the race toward true artificial general intelligence.

Tuesday META closed at $627.08, down 0.74%, and is trading after hours at $627.00, down 0.01% on the NasdaqGS.

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