Particle.news
Download on the App Store

Meta Delays 'Avocado' AI Model to May After Internal Tests Trail Rivals

Leaders are weighing a temporary Gemini license to keep products competitive, highlighting investor pressure on Meta’s massive AI spend.

Overview

  • Internal benchmarking places Avocado between Google’s Gemini 2.5 and Gemini 3 and behind top systems from Google, OpenAI and Anthropic.
  • The public launch has slipped from a mid-March target to at least May, with a June window also reported as possible.
  • Meta has discussed, without making a decision, temporarily licensing Google’s Gemini to power its AI products during the interim.
  • Meta shares fell around 2% after the reports, even as the company sticks to 2026 capital expenditure guidance of $115–$135 billion for AI infrastructure.
  • Avocado is being built by the Superintelligence/TBD Lab led by Alexandr Wang and is aimed at reasoning, coding and agentic planning, with follow-on models such as Mango and Watermelon in the pipeline.