Meta Platforms Inc. faces a key leadership gap in its artificial intelligence (AI) division as Joelle Pineau, Vice President of AI Research and head of the Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) team, announced her departure after eight years with the company.
Pineau, who also serves as a computer science professor at McGill University, will remain at Meta until May before stepping down to “observe and reflect.”
In a note to colleagues shared on her Facebook page, she stated,
“Today, as the world undergoes significant change, as the race for AI accelerates, and as Meta prepares for its next chapter, it is time to create space for others to pursue the work.”
“I will be cheering from the sidelines, knowing that you have all the ingredients needed to build the best AI systems in the world, and to responsibly bring them into the lives of billions of people,” she added.
Achievements under Pineau
Pineau noted that the research team under her leadership had created and nurtured dozens of projects that are now household names at Meta, used by dozens of teams to build better products: PyTorch, FAISS, Roberta, Dino, Llama, SAM, Codegen, Audiobox.
- She added that the company’s world-class research has also made its way into the labs and homes of millions of researchers, practitioners, entrepreneurs, tinkerers, teachers, students, and many others.
- Pineau’s FAIR team has been instrumental in advancing Meta’s AI research, including voice translation, image recognition, and the development of “advanced machine intelligence”—AI systems with human-like reasoning capabilities.
“I have so much affection and appreciation for my close team, the FAIR Leads, all the FAIR researchers, our cross-function partners and many close collaborators.
“You have been there every day of this journey, trying to reinvent the world with me, by charting a path for the future of AI,” she said in the note.
Meta’s AI push
Pineau’s exit comes at a critical time as Meta intensifies investments in AI to compete with rivals like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Elon Musk’s xAI.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has prioritized AI, pledging up to $65 billion in related projects this year.
- The company is also pushing its open-source large language model, Llama, as an industry standard, with ambitions to reach 1 billion users through its AI chatbot across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
- Meta has not yet named a successor but confirmed that a search is underway. Last year, the company restructured its AI teams to integrate FAIR more closely with product development, aiming to accelerate the deployment of AI innovations.
- A Meta spokesperson assured that Pineau’s departure does not alter the company’s AI strategy, stating, “Meta remains committed to AI research, and our plans remain unchanged.”
