Meta AI Research Chief Joelle Pineau Departs Amid Increased Investment Efforts

Meta’s head of artificial intelligence research is moving on.

Joelle Pineau, who has been with the tech giant since 2017, announced her resignation on Facebook Tuesday (April 1).

“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,” wrote Pineau, who heads Meta’s Fundamental AI Research (FAIR). “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.”

FAIR’s work focuses on topics ranging from voice translation and image-recognition technology to the company’s Llama open-source model, Bloomberg reported Tuesday. The group also studies what Meta calls “advanced machine intelligence,” or human-level intelligence for machines.

Pineau’s departure could complicate Meta’s efforts to compete with the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic on AI products and talent, the report said. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made AI the company’s chief priority and said in January that Meta would spend as much as $65 billion on its AI efforts this year.

It’s part of an escalation in AI spending by Meta, Microsoft and Amazon expected to come in the next few years. The three companies are projected to spend $371 billion on AI data centers and computing resources in 2025 — a 44% increase from last year — and $525 billion a year by 2032.

Meanwhile, there’s a divergence in the financial impact of generative AI across different industries. Some sectors reap returns while others lag despite adoption.

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “GenAI’s ROI Divide: How Leading Industries Innovate While Others Lag” found that strategic alignment and customization are proving key for determining whether GenAI can yield tangible financial gains.

The information sector leads in terms of GenAI offering a return on investments, with 65% of companies reporting very positive ROI from their GenAI deployments, outpacing other industries. This success is tied to the deployment of GenAI for high-impact tasks like content creation and cybersecurity.

While all retail firms use general-purpose conversational AI for customer engagement, 17% reported very positive ROI, “suggesting that reliance on baseline models limits more transformative financial returns,” PYMNTS wrote Tuesday.

For all PYMNTS AI coverage, subscribe to the daily AI Newsletter.