Meta Is Developing New AI Image and Video Model Code-Named "Mango"

Meta Platforms is developing a new image and video-focused AI model code-named Mango alongside the company's next text-based large language model.

Meta's chief AI officer Alexandr Wang talked about the artificial intelligence models in an internal company Q&A on Thursday with Chris Cox, Meta's chief product officer, according to people who heard the remarks. The models are expected to be released in the first half of 2026.

Wang also said one of the focuses for the new text model, code-named Avocado, is making it better at coding, and that the company is in the early stages of exploring developing so-called world models, AI that learns about its environment by taking in visual information.

Meta restructured its AI team over the summer, hiring Wang to lead a newly created division called Meta Superintelligence Labs. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally went on a recruiting blitz, poaching more than 20 researchers from OpenAI and assembling a staff of 50-plus new researchers, engineers and other employees with AI expertise.

Image generation has proven a vital front in the war between the big AI model companies.

In September, Meta launched an AI video generator called Vibes that was made in collaboration with a startup called Midjourney. Less than a week after Meta released Vibes, OpenAI released an AI video generator app of its own, called Sora.

The introduction earlier this year of Google's Nano Banana image-making tool jump-started adoption of Gemini, boosting monthly users from 450 million in July to more than 650 million as of late October.

After the release of a third version of Gemini in November, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declared a "code red" for the company to help it regain its lead on key model-performance benchmarks. The company quickly released a new version of ChatGPT Images, its image-generation product.

In a meeting with journalists last week, Altman emphasized the importance to consumers of AI image generation, saying it is a primary point of interest for many users and a particularly "sticky" feature that keeps them coming back.