Mark Zuckerberg's Meta Unveils Latest Llama 4 AI Models To Challenge OpenAI's ChatGPT 4 And Google's Gemini

Meta Platforms Inc. META unveiled the first models of its latest open-source artificial intelligence (AI) software, Llama 4, on Saturday.

What Happened:  The Mark Zuckerberg-led company announced that users can now experiment with two of the newly launched Llama 4 models, namely Llama 4 Scout and Llama 4 Maverick, on Meta AI via WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram Direct, or the Meta AI website.

Llama 4 Scout is a 17 billion active parameter model with 16 experts, while Llama 4 Maverick is a 17 billion active parameter model with 128 experts. The company stated that the new Llama 4 models are the first to feature a mixture of experts (MoE) architecture.

Despite the release, the company has not launched the most potent version of Llama 4, the Llama 4 Behemoth, which is still in training, as per the company blog post.

Chris Cox, Meta’s Chief Product Officer, stated last month that Llama 4 will elevate the capabilities of AI agents, allowing them to achieve more advanced levels of reasoning and action. These AI agents could be beneficial to both consumers and businesses by handling various tasks and web surfing.

Zuckerberg stated in an Instagram video, “Our goal is to build the world’s leading AI, open source it, and make it universally accessible so that everyone in the world benefits.”

The company also plans to host its inaugural LlamaCon AI conference on April 29. As per CNBC, the company is also expected to announce a standalone app for its Meta AI chatbot in Q2.

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Why It Matters: Meta stated that the newest Llama 4 releases are its “most advanced models yet” and “the best in their class for multimodality.” The company also believes that the models outperform ChatGPT 4, Alphabet‘s GOOG GOOGL Gemma 3 and Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite, as well as Mistral 3.1 across several parameters.

The unveiling of Llama 4 models comes at a crucial time for Meta. The company’s AI research leadership is undergoing major changes. On April 2, 2025, Joelle Pineau, the Vice President of AI research at Meta, announced her departure from the company in May.

Moreover, the company has recently faced controversy over its AI models as a court filing in the Kadrey v. Meta lawsuit indicated that Meta had been profiting from its Llama AI models through revenue-sharing agreements with host businesses, despite previous denials.

Despite these challenges, Meta continues to invest in AI, with the launch of Llama 4 models being the latest step in this direction.

Meta holds a momentum rating of 57.81% and a growth rating of 74.76%, according to Benzinga’s Proprietary Edge Rankings. The Benzinga Growth metric evaluates a stock’s historical earnings and revenue expansion across multiple timeframes, prioritizing both long-term trends and recent performance. For an in-depth report on more stocks and insights into growth opportunities, sign up for Benzinga Edge.

The shares of Meta closed 5.06% lower at $504.73 on Friday. The stock plunged more than 19% over the past month.

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.