Yann LeCun has confirmed reports of his exit from Meta, and given more context on what he’ll be up to next.
After 12 years at Meta—five as founding director of Facebook AI Research (FAIR) and seven as Chief AI Scientist—the Turing Award winner is launching a startup focused on what he calls Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI). LeCun announced his plans in a public statement, describing the creation of FAIR as his “proudest non-technical accomplishment.”
AMI (Advanced Machine Intelligence)
LeCun’s new venture aims to push beyond current AI capabilities toward systems that can understand the physical world, maintain persistent memory, reason, and plan complex action sequences. This research direction represents a significant departure from the large language models and generative AI that have dominated recent AI breakthroughs.
“The goal of the startup is to bring about the next big revolution in AI,” LeCun wrote, emphasizing capabilities that go beyond pattern recognition and text generation.
The AMI research program isn’t entirely new—LeCun has been developing these ideas over recent years in collaboration with colleagues at FAIR, New York University, and other institutions. His new company will serve as an independent vehicle to accelerate this work and broaden its impact across multiple sectors.
Meta as Partner, Not Parent
In an unusual arrangement, Meta will partner with the new startup rather than retain the research internally. LeCun expressed gratitude to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, CTO Andrew Bosworth, Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, and former CTO Mike Schroepfer for their support of both FAIR and the AMI program.
“Pursuing the goal of AMI in an independent entity is a way to maximize its broad impact,” LeCun explained, noting that while some applications will align with Meta’s commercial interests, many will not.
This structure suggests a recognition that the next wave of AI breakthroughs may require freedom to explore applications beyond social media and virtual reality—Meta’s core business domains.
FAIR’s Legacy
Under LeCun’s leadership, FAIR became one of the world’s premier AI research labs, contributing foundational work in deep learning, computer vision, and natural language processing. The lab pioneered the open research model in industry, publishing papers freely and releasing tools like PyTorch that became industry standards.
LeCun plans to remain at Meta through the end of the year before fully transitioning to the new venture. He has promised additional details about the company in the coming months.
The departure marks the end of an era for Meta’s AI efforts but potentially signals a new chapter in the broader AI field, as one of deep learning’s pioneers sets his sights on artificial intelligence that can truly understand and interact with the world.