Meta's next AI move targets the growing video generation market

In the age of the AI race, Meta is struggling to keep pace, and its next move targets a rapidly growing front in the competition: AI-generated video.

Meta plans to release a new AI model focused on images and video, alongside the next version of its text-based model, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The company is developing new AI models, including an image-and-video model called "Mango" and a text model internally referred to as "Avocado".

This project is led by Meta's chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, the founder of Scale AI, who joined Meta earlier this year.

The social media company plans to release the new models in the first half of 2026. Wang, together with Meta's chief product officer, Chris Cox, unveiled the new roadmap.

Meta will face intense competition in this space, where creative tools for image and video generation are already becoming crowded and increasingly saturated. Alphabet's Google has taken an early lead with products such as Veo and Nano Banana, followed by OpenAI's Sora and Adobe's Firefly. However, Meta enters the race with a key advantage: its massive, deeply embedded user base across social platforms, which could help drive rapid adoption despite the crowded market.

Wang said Meta is focused on strengthening its text-based model and improving coding capabilities, while also developing new world models that can understand visual information and reason, plan, and act without being trained on every possible scenario.

The company plans a significant restructuring of its AI division this year, including leadership changes and an aggressive push to recruit top researchers from rival firms. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has launched a hiring spree,to build a new unit, Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), tasked with developing the next generation of AI models. The division is led by Wang, the former founder of Scale AI, a data-labeling startup in which Meta acquired a 49% stake for $14 billion.

However, several researchers who joined MSL have already left the company. Last month, the company's chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, also announced his exit to launch his own startup.

Meta still does not have a standout AI product. Instead, the popularity of the Meta AI assistant primarily comes from Meta's huge social media user base, which includes billions of people. By placing the assistant directly in the search bar of its apps, the company ensures that users see and use it more because of reach and placement rather than because the product itself is clearly superior.

This means that the initial projects and models from MSL will carry significant expectations and pressure in the race for AI.