Meta AI VP Joelle Pineau to Return to Academia

Joelle Pineau, Meta's Vice President of AI Research, announced her departure from the company, effective at the end of May 2025, after an eight-year tenure. She has been pivotal in leading Meta's open-source AI initiatives, such as the Llama large language model, and her exit comes at a time when Meta is heavily investing in AI to compete with industry leaders like OpenAI and Google. Pineau's decision to leave, as she stated on social media, is to make way for new leadership during a transformative period in AI development. Meta has not yet announced a successor, which presents challenges given the strategic importance of this role as the company plans to spend up to $65 billion on AI initiatives this year. Pineau, who is also a professor at McGill University, intends to take time to 'observe and reflect' post-departure. Her exit may complicate Meta's competitive positioning in the AI sector, particularly as it seeks to develop advanced machine intelligence technologies.