Meta on Monday, local time, launched the brand-new generation of flagship AI models, Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full, explicitly stating its goal of catching up with Anthropic and OpenAI. According to the test results Meta provided, the two models' scores in reasoning, writing, and code are already close to Anthropic's top-tier level.
Behind this move is Zuckerberg's department restructuring last year. After R&D setbacks, he reshuffled the AI landscape and gradually rolled out the new models and products to a combined 3.5 billion users on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. The earlier AI agent app Muse can operate various kinds of software on behalf of users, and within weeks of its launch last month it shot to the top of the app store charts. Facing industry concerns about agents going out of control and intruding into systems, Zuckerberg deliberately told a differentiated story: while the architecture is similar to rivals', he stressed that AI should empower users rather than create danger.
Watermelon codenames revealed, launch previously delayed
Muse Wonder was led by Chief AI Officer and Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang, who joined in June last year. It is the second-generation model since Wang took charge of the department, and Meta's first product to openly claim it is "benchmarking the frontier" — models of this kind typically consume enormous compute. Soon, it will power some features of the Muse app; the stronger Wonder Full will be available only to Muse Code premium subscribers. The two models, internally codenamed "watermelon," represent a major leap in coding capability over Meta's earlier work, and while the AI coding track is currently dominated by Anthropic and OpenAI, Meta is trying to expand its business to the enterprise side.
Development was not smooth: The New York Times reported that Meta halted pretraining in July, forcing the launch to be postponed to this month. Over the weekend, Zuckerberg previewed the new product during an Instagram livestream while barbecuing, also pointing out that the menu had "one more big watermelon."