Meta Avocado AI Model 2026: The Post-Llama Era Begins

Meta is building its most powerful AI model ever - codenamed "Avocado." It's 10x more efficient than Llama 4, led by Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang, and may mark Meta's shift from open-source to closed-source AI. Here's what founders need to know about the model that could reshape the AI landscape.

What Is Meta Avocado?

Avocado is Meta's next-generation large language model, built inside the newly formed Meta Superintelligence Labs (formerly TBD Lab). It represents a radical departure from the Llama model family that made Meta a champion of open-source AI.

According to internal memos first reported by The Information, Avocado has already completed pre-training and is outperforming every model Meta has ever built - by a wide margin. The model focuses on advanced reasoning, multimodal understanding (text, images, video), and coding capabilities, areas where previous Llama models struggled against OpenAI and Anthropic.

The Numbers Are Staggering

Internal benchmarks leaked from Meta Superintelligence Labs paint a picture of a model that's dramatically more capable than anything Meta has released:

• 10x compute efficiency wins over Llama 4 Maverick on text-based tasks
• 100x more efficient than Llama 4 Behemoth (Meta's 2-trillion-parameter model)
• Outperforms leading open-source models in knowledge, visual perception, and multilingual performance - even before post-training refinement
• Competitive with leading post-trained models from OpenAI and Anthropic while still in pre-training

That last point is especially notable. Most models improve significantly during the post-training phase (RLHF, instruction tuning, safety alignment). If Avocado is already competitive with GPT-5 and Claude before post-training, the finished model could be genuinely frontier-class.

Who's Building It: The Alexandr Wang Era

To understand Avocado, you need to understand the leadership shakeup that produced it.

In mid-2025, Mark Zuckerberg made one of the most expensive talent acquisitions in tech history: hiring Alexandr Wang, the 28-year-old CEO and co-founder of Scale AI, as Meta's new Chief AI Officer. The deal reportedly cost $14.3 billion (including acquiring Scale AI).

Wang now leads Meta Superintelligence Labs, an elite unit tasked with building frontier AI. His team includes:

• Nat Friedman - former CEO of GitHub
• Shengjia Zhao - a co-creator of ChatGPT
• Top researchers poached from Google DeepMind, OpenAI, and Anthropic

Open Source vs. Closed Source: The Big Question

This is the story within the story, and it matters enormously for founders.

Meta spent years building Llama as the world's most important open-source AI. Llama models power thousands of startups, research projects, and enterprise deployments. The open-source strategy gave Meta enormous developer goodwill and made them the default choice for anyone who wanted AI without vendor lock-in.

Avocado may end all of that.

Multiple reports indicate Meta is seriously considering releasing Avocado as a closed-source, proprietary model. The reasons:

• Competitive intelligence: Chinese AI labs (including DeepSeek and Alibaba) used Llama's open weights to rapidly build competing models. Meta is tired of training its competitors.
• Revenue pressure: With $115-135 billion in planned 2026 AI capex, Meta needs Avocado to generate direct revenue, not just goodwill.
• Platform integration: Avocado is designed for deep, native integration across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads. It's less a standalone model and more an embedded intelligence layer for 3+ billion daily users.
• Safety concerns: A frontier-class model with advanced reasoning and coding capabilities raises safety questions Meta may not want to answer in the open.

Avocado vs. The Competition

Here's how Avocado is expected to stack up against the current frontier models when it launches:

The Companion Model: Mango

Alongside Avocado (text/code), Meta is building Mango - a dedicated image and video generation model. While Avocado handles language and reasoning, Mango handles visual creation.

Together, they form Meta's answer to OpenAI's GPT + Sora stack:

• Avocado: Text, code, reasoning, multimodal understanding
• Mango: High-fidelity image generation, video creation, visual editing

For founders building visual or creative AI products, Mango could be significant - especially if it's integrated directly into Instagram and WhatsApp, giving it instant access to billions of users.

Timeline: What We Know

What This Means for AI Founders

If Avocado Goes Closed-Source

• New API competitor: Another frontier model option alongside OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. More competition typically means better pricing.
• Meta platform advantage: Expect deep integrations with Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp. Building on Meta's platforms may get AI superpowers.
• Open-source gap: The best open-source models would fall further behind the frontier. DeepSeek, Qwen, and community forks of Llama 4 become the open-source options.

If Avocado Goes Open-Source

• Massive upgrade: The open-source community would get a 10x leap over Llama 4 for free.
• Self-hosting gets better: Founders running their own models get frontier-class capabilities without per-token pricing.
• Fine-tuning goldmine: Open weights for a model this capable would spawn thousands of specialized variants.

The $135 Billion Question

Meta plans to spend $115-135 billion on AI infrastructure in 2026. Combined with Alphabet's $185 billion, Microsoft's expected $80+ billion, and Amazon's significant investment, Big Tech is pouring roughly half a trillion dollars into AI this year alone.

Avocado is where a huge chunk of Meta's investment is pointed. The model isn't just a research project - it's expected to power:

• Meta AI assistant across all platforms (3B+ daily users)
• Ad targeting and optimization (Meta's core revenue engine)
• Content moderation at scale
• WhatsApp Business AI for enterprise customers
• Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and AR/VR experiences

This is not a model that exists in a vacuum. It's the intelligence layer for one of the world's largest technology ecosystems.

Bottom Line for Founders

Meta Avocado represents three things you should care about:

1. The frontier is expanding: Another serious competitor means better models, lower prices, and more options for founders. Whether Avocado is open or closed, more competition is good for builders.
2. The open-source era may be changing: If Meta goes closed-source, the assumption that "open-source AI will catch up" gets harder to defend. Plan accordingly.
3. Platform bets matter: If you're building on Meta's platforms (Instagram API, WhatsApp Business, Facebook apps), Avocado integration could give you significant AI capabilities baked in. Watch for early access programs.

The model hasn't shipped yet, and Meta's timelines have slipped before. But the internal benchmarks suggest something genuinely impressive is coming. Whether it arrives as an open gift to developers or a closed competitor to ChatGPT will define the next chapter of the AI landscape.