Meta’s Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun Exits To Start His Own AI Venture: All You Need To Know

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LeCun, one of the world’s top AI experts and a Turing Award winner, is leaving Meta to start his own artificial intelligence company. His exit came at a time when Mark Zuckerberg’s company changing its AI strategy to focus more on business use and large-scale commercial products.According to a report from the Financial Times, LeCun, who has led Meta’s Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) lab since 2013, is currently in talks with investors to secure early-stage funding for his new venture that could directly compete with OpenAI and Google in the next wave of AI innovation.

A Shift in Meta’s AI Vision

LeCun’s exit shows a big shift in Meta’s AI future. Under CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the company recently established a new division called Superintelligence Labs, appointing Alexandr Wang, former CEO of Scale AI, as Meta’s new Chief AI Officer.With this restructuring, LeCun now reports to Wang rather than directly overseeing Meta’s broader AI direction, a change that reportedly influenced his decision to move on.Mark Zuckerberg’s AI plan focuses on creating 'personal superintelligence' -- a type of AI that can quickly be turned into real products for users and businesses. On the other side, Yann LeCun believes AI should be developed through deeper research, aiming to build systems that can think, learn and understand the world more like humans do.The leadership shuffle comes amid mounting pressure within Meta’s AI teams. In October, the company cut roughly 600 positions from its AI division and several senior researchers left soon after, citing uncertainty about the company’s long-term research goals.Despite Meta’s heavy investments in AI infrastructure, insiders say the company’s focus has shifted from pure research to product-driven execution -- a direction that doesn’t align with LeCun’s academic and scientific ideals.Yann LeCun’s move is likely to trigger a new wave of AI startups in Silicon Valley. He is well known for training and guiding some of the brightest minds in artificial intelligence and his new company could attract top researchers who want more freedom and creativity in their work.As global players like OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Anthropic continue to expand, LeCun’s startup could become an alternative -- one that focuses not just on chatbots or image tools but on advanced AI systems that learn and think more like humans.