In its push to create an "AI-first" workplace, Meta is expanding employees' access to tools from rivals such as Google and OpenAI, Business Insider has learned. The social media giant has been encouraging employees to integrate AI tools into nearly everything they do, according to multiple internal documents and posts seen by Business Insider.One of the company's priorities is to "make AI core to how we work," Meta's chief information officer, Atish Banerjea, told employees in a June memo outlining a plan ...

Core Insights - Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg views time as the only enemy in the AI race, investing hundreds of billions and offering nine-figure salaries to attract top talent, while accelerating internal engineering processes from hours to minutes to close the gap with competitors like OpenAI and Google [1][3][6] Group 1: Investment and Talent Acquisition - Meta has made significant investments in AI, including restructuring its AI team and offering salaries as high as $250 million to attract top talent [5][3] - The company has established the Meta Superintelligence Lab (MSL) to centralize all AI operations and expedite development [3][1] Group 2: Internal Revolution and Infrastructure Changes - MSL is pushing for a deep internal revolution to adopt faster engineering tools and accelerate AI development [1][9] - Meta is transitioning from its slow legacy systems to more agile platforms like Vercel and GitHub to enhance productivity and reduce deployment times from 99 minutes to under 2 minutes [12][14] Group 3: AI Usage and Employee Engagement - Meta has implemented various measures to enforce AI usage among employees, including tracking AI usage rates and setting specific targets for different departments [2][17] - The company has gamified AI adoption through a project called "Level Up," rewarding employees for completing tasks that involve AI tools [21][23] Group 4: Leadership and Strategic Direction - Nat Friedman, former CEO of GitHub, is leading the product and application research team at Meta, emphasizing the urgency to adopt faster development practices [7][9] - Zuckerberg has expressed a willingness to incur losses in the short term to avoid missing out on the potential of AI, highlighting the critical nature of rapid action in this technological race [6][1]

Core Insights - Meta Platforms Inc. is shifting its AI prototyping work to external developer platforms to enhance development speed as part of its new Meta Superintelligence Labs initiative [1][3][8] Group 1: Development Strategy - The integration of tools like Vercel and GitHub aims to improve deployment times, reducing them from 99 minutes to under 2 minutes [6] - Meta's internal memos indicate that the current deployment process is inefficient, taking "hours vs. minutes" [3] - The company is adopting a dual-track approach, relying on Vercel for immediate deployment speed while developing an internal platform called "Nest" [4][5] Group 2: Strategic Partnerships and Investments - Meta is exploring collaborations with Google and AI startups like Scale AI to bolster its AI infrastructure [2] - Vercel recently raised $300 million, achieving a valuation of $9.3 billion, with notable investors including Meta's AI chief and other prominent firms [7] - The partnership with Vercel and GitHub is part of a broader strategy to remain competitive against rivals like OpenAI and Google [6][8] Group 3: Internal Challenges and Adjustments - Meta's Product and Applied Research group is steering engineers away from slower home-grown systems due to performance limitations [3] - Despite significant investments in its own AI models, Meta has faced challenges, including reliance on external tools like Anthropic's Claude and Midjourney for specific tasks [8][9]