Meta is reportedly ditching open Llama models for Avocado, a closed model built for direct sales

According to Bloomberg's sources, Meta is shifting its focus to a new AI model codenamed "Avocado," with a release potentially coming next spring. Avocado is expected to launch as a closed model, letting the company sell access directly. This marks a major shift from Meta's established open-model strategy. Internally, the open-source approach reportedly lost steam after the disappointing performance of Llama 4. Management is betting big on Alexandr Wang, who joined Meta following the company's deal with Scale AI.

The development process involves some surprising ingredients. According to Bloomberg, the team is training Avocado using several external models, including Google's Gemma, OpenAI's gpt-oss, and Alibaba's Qwen. Using Chinese technology clashes with CEO Mark Zuckerberg's previous warnings about Chinese censorship.