Meta is planning a major shift in its artificial intelligence strategy, and a new model called Avocado is at the centre of it. The first accounts say that this system is very different from the company’s old method of using open models like the Llama family. With Avocado, Meta seems ready to put business results ahead of openness, suggesting a new phase in its AI goals has begun.
Meta shifts from open-source to commercial AI
For years, Meta tried to make people believe that it was the biggest tech company most dedicated to open AI research. Llama 2 and Llama 3 were given out for free to coders, study labs, and businesses. This meant that, even though Meta couldn’t make money from them directly, they still had a lot of power. But inside the company, the bosses started to wonder how much transparency could really help them in a market where the main competitors were paid platforms from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. It was clear what the decision was. The next group of models needed to make money, not just make the environment happy. Avocado is the first model built under this new plan, and it will be offered via paid APIs rather than free or open releases.
The Avocado model is built by an AI team that has been reorganised.
When Avocado was being developed, there was a big change in how Meta’s AI work was organised. The business has brought together study groups into a new unit called Meta Superintelligence Labs, which is run by Alexandr Wang, the founder of Scale AI. His leadership style is more focused on competition and products. Instead of doing broad academic-style work, teams are now focused on making cutting-edge models that can compete with GPT, Claude, and Gemini. This new organisation has also focused resources on high-performance training runs and money-making uses, making long-term observational study less important.
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A restricted release indicates larger industry effects.
What makes Avocado different from Meta’s older projects is not just what it can do, but also how it will likely be released. The model’s weights may not be available, and it may not have open licenses. Instead, it could be gated behind corporate deals, which would make Meta compete more directly with other AI companies. The change has sparked a lot of discussion in the company, especially among academics who previously supported open access. Recently, some well-known people leaving Meta’s AI teams have made it seem like there is disagreement among the company’s staff over how to do things.
Avocado is a turning point for the larger AI environment. If Meta stops doing open releases, there may be fewer state-of-the-art models that are easy to get. There are already talks between standards groups and coders about what it means to have fewer open options. Meta hasn’t said when Avocado will come out, but the app clearly shows that it wants to be in the AI big leagues and finally has a way to make money to support its goals.
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