The head of Meta’s artificial intelligence research division announced her plans to step down, creating a vacancy in a key role at the parent company of Facebook and Instagram amidst fierce competition in the AI technology sector.
Joelle Pineau, the vice president for AI research at Meta, revealed on Tuesday (April 1, 2025) that she will be departing at the end of May, marking the end of an eight-year tenure with the company.
“Today, as the world undergoes significant change, as the race for AI accelerates, and as Meta prepares for its next chapter, it is time to create space for others to pursue the work,” Pineau stated in a social media post.
Meta has not yet provided a response to inquiries regarding Pineau’s departure, and no replacement has been announced by Pineau herself.
Operating from Montreal, where she also serves as a computer science professor at McGill University, Pineau has been a prominent figure in Meta’s adoption of an “open-source” strategy for developing AI systems, including the widely used Llama language model, which offers core components for public use and modification.
Pineau’s announcement comes just before Meta’s upcoming LlamaCon AI conference scheduled for April 29.
In 2023, Pineau took over as the head of Meta’s AI research division, previously known as Facebook AI Research, which was established a decade ago by a team that included renowned AI researcher Yann LeCun.
Despite LeCun stepping down as the group’s director in 2018, he remains Meta’s chief AI scientist.
Published – April 02, 2025 03:15 am IST
