Meta is building a giant AI model to power its ‘entire video ecosystem,’ exec says
Omar Marques | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Meta’s hefty investment in artificial intelligence includes development of an AI system designed to power Facebook’s entire video recommendation engine across all its platforms, a company executive said Wednesday.
Tom Alison, the head of Facebook, said part of Meta’s “technology roadmap that goes to 2026” involves developing an AI recommendation model that can power both the company’s TikTok-like Reels short video service and more traditional, longer videos.
To date, Meta has typically used a separate model for each of its products, such as Reels, Groups and the core Facebook Feed, Alison said onstage at Morgan Stanley’s tech conference in San Francisco.
As part of Meta’s ambitious foray into AI, the company has been spending billions of dollars on Nvidia graphics processing units, or GPUs. They’ve become the primary chips used by AI researchers for training the types of large language models used to power OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT chatbot and other generative AI models.
Alison said “phase 1” of Meta’s tech roadmap involved switching the company’s current recommendation systems to GPUs from more traditional computer chips, helping to improve the overall performance of products.
As interest in LLMs exploded last year, Meta executives were struck by how these big AI models could “handle lots of data and all kinds of very general-purpose types of activities like chatting,” Alison said. Meta came to see the possibility of a giant recommendation model that could be used across products, and by last year, built “this kind of new model architecture,” Alison said, adding that the company tested it on Reels.
This new “model architecture” helped Facebook obtain “an 8% to 10% gain in Reels watch time” on the core Facebook app, which Alison said helped prove that the model was “learning from the data much more efficiently than the previous generation.”
“We’ve really focused on kind of investing more in making sure that we can scale these models up with the right kind of hardware,” he said.
Meta is now in “phase 3” of its re-architecture of the system, which involves trying to validate the technology and push it across multiple products.
“Instead of just powering Reels, we’re working on a project to power our entire video ecosystem with this single model, and then can we add our Feed recommendation product to also be served by this model,” Alison said. “If we get this right, not only will the recommendations be kind of more engaging and more relevant, but we think the responsiveness of them can improve as well.”
Illustrating out how it will work if successful, Alison said, “If you see something that you’re into in Reels, and then you go back to the Feed, we can kind of show you more similar content.”
Alison said Meta has accumulated a massive stockpile of GPUs that will be used to help its broader generative AI efforts, such as development of digital assistants.
Some generative AI projects Meta is considering include incorporating more sophisticated chatting tools into its core Feed so a person who sees a “recommended post about Taylor Swift,” could perhaps “easily just click a button and say, ‘Hey Meta AI, tell me more about what I’m seeing with Taylor Swift right now.'”
Meta is also experimenting with integrating its AI chatting tool within Groups, so a member of a Facebook baking group could potentially ask a question about desserts and get an answer from a digital assistant.
“I think we have the opportunity to put generative AI in kind of a multiplayer kind of consumer environment,” Alison said.
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Omada Health virtual health program.
Courtesy: Omada Health
Omada Health priced its IPO at $19 per share on Thursday, in the middle of the expected range.
The virtual chronic care company said in a press release that 7.9 million shares are being sold in the offering, amounting to $150 million.
Omada, founded in 2012, will trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “OMDA.” The company filed its initial prospectus in May and updated the document with an expected pricing range of $18 to $20 per share.
At the IPO price, Omada is worth about $1.1 billion, though that number could be higher on a fully diluted basis. That’s right around its private market valuation from 2022, when Omada announced a $192 million funding round that pushed its valuation above $1 billion.
U.S. Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Fidelity’s FMR LLC are the largest outside shareholders in the company, each owning between 9% and 10% of the stock.
Omada offers virtual care programs to support patients with chronic conditions like prediabetes, diabetes and hypertension. Sean Duffy, Omada’s CEO, co-founded the company with Andrew DiMichele and Adrian James, who have both moved on to other ventures.
It’s the second digital health IPO in a matter of weeks following an extended drought for the industry. Digital physical therapy startup Hinge Health debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in May.
The tech IPO market has been showing signs of life, with Hinge being one of the latest offerings. On Thursday, shares of crypto company Circle Internet soared 168% in their New York Stock Exchange debut. Fintech company eToro started trading last month, and Chime Financial, which offers online banking services, is set to hit the market next week.
Omada’s revenue increased 57% in its first quarter to $55 million from $35.1 million a year earlier, according to its prospectus. For 2024, revenue rose 38% to $169.8 million from $122.8 million the previous year.
The company’s net loss narrowed to $9.4 million in the first quarter from $19 million a year ago.
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Microsoft Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella speaks during the Microsoft Build 2025, conference in Seattle, Washington, on May 19, 2025.
Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images
On a down day for the market, Microsoft reached a record high for the first time in 11 months.
Shares of the software giant rose 0.8% to close at $467.68. Microsoft has once again reclaimed the title of world’s largest company by market cap, with a valuation of $3.48 trillion. Nvidia has a market cap of $3.42 trillion, and Apple is valued at $3 trillion.
Microsoft last recorded a record close in July 2024. The stock is now up 11% for the year, while the Nasdaq is flat.
Tech stocks broadly dropped on Thursday, led by a plunge in Tesla, as CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump escalated their public beef. Musk, who was leading the Trump Administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) until last week, has slammed the Trump-backed spending bill making its way through Congress, a spat that has turned personal.
But Microsoft investors appear to be tuning out that noise.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella focused on his company’s tight relationship with artificial intelligence startup OpenAI in an interview with Bloomberg, some portions of which were published on Thursday.
“Why would any one of us want to go upset that?” he told Bloomberg. Nadella told analysts in January that OpenAI had made a large new commitment with Microsoft’s Azure cloud. In total, Microsoft has invested nearly $14 billion in OpenAI.
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