Meta (META) on Wednesday launched what it said is its most powerful AI model yet, a key piece of its broader AI rebuilding effort.
The model, called Muse Spark, is the first from the company’s Meta Superintelligence Lab (MSL), which CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled in June. Meta founded the lab in response to criticisms that its prior AI models didn’t live up to expectations. Zuckerberg subsequently hired a host of AI heavyweights, including Scale.AI founder Alexandr Wang, and established MSL.
Meta stock rose more than 9% in midday trading.
In a post on X, Wang said Meta is currently using Muse Spark to power its Meta AI services and that the company is already working on larger models.
In his own Facebook post, Zuckerberg outlined the AI’s new capabilities, saying, “It’s a world-class assistant and particularly strong in areas related to personal superintelligence like visual understanding, health, social content, shopping, games, and more.”
According to Meta, Muse Spark can task multiple subagents with different tasks to complete various requests. In one example, the company said you’ll now be able to use Meta AI to do things like plan family trips.
Meta said the agents will then draft an itinerary, compare different locations you’re considering, and find potential activities, all at the same time.
The AI can also recognize images and provide insights into what it sees. So, the company said, if you take a picture of snacks on the shelf at a shop in an airport, Meta AI will provide information about the items and can tell you which one has the most protein or calories.
Crucially for Meta, Wang wrote on X, Muse Spark’s contemplating mode is “competitive [with] other extreme reasoning models such as Gemini Deep Think and GPT Pro.”
In an evaluation document of the model, Muse Spark tops AI models from Anthropic (ANTH.PVT), Google (GOOG, GOOGL), OpenAI (OPAI.PVT), and xAI (SPAX.PVT) in some categories, though it falls short in others.
Unlike prior AI models, Meta isn’t making Muse Spark open source, but the company said it hopes to make future versions of the model open.
Meta, like its Big Tech peers, is pouring billions into its AI build-out. During its most recent quarter, the company said it expects to spend between $115 billion and $135 billion in 2026, up from $72.22 billion in 2025.
But the spending seems to be paying off. Meta’s 2025 revenue topped out at $198.8 billion, up 22% versus the prior year, when the company brought in $162.4 billion. Analysts expect the social media giant to see 2026 revenue of $247.7 billion.
