Meta's head of AI research Joelle Pineau steps down after 8 years at Meta
Joelle Pineau, Vice President of AI Research at Meta, has announced her departure from the company after an eight-year tenure. In a LinkedIn post on Tuesday, Pineau stated that her last day at Meta will be 30 May 2025. Reflecting on her time with the company, Pineau said, "After nearly 8 years at Meta, time has come to say farewell. This has been the professional experience of a lifetime!"
Contributions and Achievements
Pineau joined Meta in 2017 to lead the company’s Montreal AI research lab and was later appointed as the head of Meta’s Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) group in 2023. During her tenure, she spearheaded several critical projects, including Meta’s Llama family of open-source large language models (LLMs) and the widely used machine learning framework, PyTorch. She also led research in advanced AI applications such as voice translation and image recognition. Additionally, Pineau is a professor of computer science at McGill University, where she co-directs the reasoning and learning lab.
Meta's Future in AI
Her departure comes at a pivotal moment for Meta, as the company intensifies its focus on artificial intelligence. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made AI a core priority, aiming to build an AI assistant with more than one billion users and eventually achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI). To support these ambitions, Meta plans to invest between $60 billion and $65 billion in AI development this year, including expanding its data centre infrastructure and doubling its number of graphics processing units (GPUs) to 1.3 million.
Meta’s open-source LLMs, including Llama, stand as the only major alternative to proprietary models such as OpenAI’s GPT and Google’s Gemini. The company is expected to unveil further developments at LlamaCon, its first developer conference dedicated to generative AI, scheduled for 29 April 2025. In March, Meta’s Chief Product Officer, Chris Cox, stated that Llama 4 would power AI agents, which have become a focal point of the generative AI race.
Meta has not yet announced a successor for Pineau, but the company confirmed that the search for a new head of FAIR is underway.
Future Plans
Pineau did not disclose her next career move but noted that she plans to take some time to reflect before embarking on a new journey. "I will be cheering from the sidelines, knowing that you have all the ingredients needed to build the best AI systems in the world, and to responsibly bring them into the lives of billions of people," she wrote.
Meta has not yet announced a successor for Pineau, but the company confirmed that the search for a new head of FAIR is underway.
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