Meta Platforms Inc.’s Avocado artificial intelligence (AI) model stays in the kitchen a bit longer.
The company has postponed the release of its highly anticipated frontier model, which was originally slated for a March debut but is now expected to remain under wraps until at least May or June, according to reports from The New York Times and Reuters.
The delay highlights the intense pressure facing social media giant Meta as it shifts its entire business strategy toward AI development. Despite CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s aggressive roadmap, sources familiar with the matter indicate that Avocado has struggled to keep pace with the rapidly evolving offerings of its primary competitors.
Internal testing suggests that Avocado currently sits in a technological middle ground. While the model has successfully outperformed Meta’s previous iterations and shows greater capability than Google’s Gemini 2.5 (released in March), it has failed to match the benchmarks set by Google’s Gemini 3.
Specific performance concerns reportedly center on the model’s ability to handle complex reasoning, coding, and creative writing — areas where rivals OpenAI and Anthropic have already established high standards. The performance delta has led to a surprising internal discussion: Meta’s AI leadership has reportedly weighed the possibility of temporarily licensing Google’s Gemini technology to power Meta’s own products while Avocado is further refined.
The stakes for getting Avocado right are astronomical. In January, Meta revealed a massive capital-spending plan, earmarking between $115 billion and $135 billion for 2026 alone. This funding is dedicated to building specialized data centers, developing proprietary chips, and pursuing the ultimate goal of superintelligence, the theoretical point at which AI surpasses human cognitive abilities.
A Meta spokesperson downplayed the delay, framing the upcoming release as part of a long-term strategy rather than a setback.
“Our next model will be good, but more importantly, it will show the rapid trajectory we’re on,” the spokesperson said, echoing Zuckerberg’s recent remarks to investors. “We’ll steadily push the frontier over the course of the year.”
For now, the tech world remains in a holding pattern.
While Meta remains “excited for people to see what we’ve been cooking,” it said, the delay suggests that even with nearly $135 billion in annual spending, the path to AI supremacy is fraught with technical hurdles. Whether Avocado can close the gap by June will be a defining test for Meta’s future as an AI powerhouse.
