Meta Bets Big on Mango and Avocado to Re-enter the AI Power Race

Meta is gearing up for a significant return to the artificial intelligence spotlight with the development of two next-generation models—Mango and Avocado—expected to launch in the first half of 2026. According to a Wall Street Journal report, these models represent Meta’s most ambitious attempt yet to challenge industry leaders OpenAI and Google, both of which have dominated the AI conversation over the past year.

The initiative is being spearheaded by Meta’s Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, the 28-year-old founder of Scale AI. Wang joined Meta earlier this year after the company acquired a near-majority stake in his startup for more than $14 billion. Under his leadership, Mango and Avocado will become the first flagship products of Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), a newly formed division created to accelerate the company’s AI breakthroughs.

Each model has a distinct focus. Mango is being designed for image and video generation, with an emphasis on high-quality creative output. Meta hopes it will rival advanced tools such as OpenAI’s Sora and Google’s Gemini 3 Flash, both of which have gained strong traction among creators and developers. Avocado, on the other hand, is Meta’s next large language model (LLM), built to significantly improve on coding, reasoning, and complex problem-solving—areas where Meta’s current Llama models are seen as lagging behind competitors.

During an internal Q&A session, Wang reportedly described Avocado as Meta’s most advanced LLM so far, highlighting a shift in how the company approaches AI development. “We’re building models that understand the world, not just words,” he said, pointing to Meta’s early work on so-called “world models.” This approach moves beyond traditional next-word prediction and aims to give AI systems a deeper, perception-based understanding of reality—an area many experts consider the next frontier of artificial intelligence.

The push behind Mango and Avocado follows a major internal reorganisation at Meta earlier in 2025. The company consolidated its AI teams and placed Wang in charge of a tightly focused, elite research group. Meta has also aggressively recruited talent, reportedly hiring more than 20 scientists from OpenAI and forming what insiders describe as a “super team” of over 50 AI specialists within MSL.

Timing is critical. The AI arms race is intensifying, with Google recently rolling out Gemini 3 Flash, a faster and more affordable version of its flagship model aimed at mass adoption. OpenAI continues to expand its ecosystem with tools like ChatGPT Images and Sora, which have quickly become popular among users. Meta itself has experimented in this space, launching Vibes, a video generator developed with Midjourney, though competition remains fierce.

With Mango and Avocado, Meta is signaling that it no longer intends to trail behind. Backed by heavy investment, top-tier talent, and a renewed strategic focus, the company is positioning itself to stand toe-to-toe with Google’s Gemini lineup and OpenAI’s GPT models—this time with a stronger blend of creativity, reasoning, and computational ambition.