Meta is making one of its boldest AI moves yet, dropping a staggering $14.3 billion for a 49% stake in Scale AI and recruiting its CEO, Alexandr Wang, to head up a new AI Superintelligence lab. Wang won’t fully cut ties with Scale, remaining on its board while passing the CEO reins to former strategy chief Jason Droege. It’s a power shuffle that signals Meta’s ambitions in AI are dead serious—and personal for Mark Zuckerberg, who’ll have Wang report to him directly.
This investment isn’t just about money; it’s about catching up. Meta’s AI division has lagged behind competitors like OpenAI and Google, with its Llama 4 rollout plagued by delays and accusations of benchmark tampering. Zuckerberg seems determined to shake things up, reportedly courting top AI talent from rival labs and refocusing Meta’s AI roadmap around two major 2025 goals: making Meta AI the go-to personal assistant and laying foundations for artificial general intelligence (AGI).
Scale AI has long been a behind-the-scenes powerhouse in the AI world, partnering with major players to annotate and label critical training data. With Wang shifting to Meta, Scale’s future seems steady with Droege at the helm. Wang, in a staff memo, called Meta’s investment a “turning point” for Scale and promised equity opportunities for existing shareholders as the company charts its next phase.
What’s especially interesting here is how Meta is positioning itself not just as a chatbot contender, but as a serious AGI player. The move feels reactive, yes—but also overdue. Meta’s standalone Meta AI app with its own social feed is already in the wild, but it’ll take more than that to meaningfully challenge the likes of GPT, Gemini, and Claude. Wang’s leadership might be the wildcard Meta desperately needed.
