Meta’s Open-Source AI Prepares to Go to Market

As Meta Platforms tries to make its large language model Llama the industry standard for artificial intelligence, it is not only courting big businesses but also taking steps to work with one of the largest customers in the world: the U.S. government. 

In November, the company poached Clara Shih from Salesforce, where she was CEO of Salesforce AI, to head a new group building AI tools for businesses. Since joining Meta, Shih has staffed her team with company veterans who worked on its prior forays into commerce or enterprise sales. 

Shih’s direct reports have worked on business messaging, which allows businesses to chat directly with their customers on Meta’s apps; Marketplace, where people can buy and sell items on Facebook; and Workplace, the company’s to-be-shuttered collaboration and productivity software. Meta has also tapped Justin Osofsky, a long-timer who previously led sales to small and medium-sized businesses, to develop a go-to-market strategy for its open-source large language model Llama. (For more, see our Org Chart for Meta.)

And more hiring could be announced. Meta late last year posted a role called “director of public sector enablement,” responsible for “building and leading a high-performing team from the ground up to drive the adoption of safe and transformative solutions [for AI] across federal, state, and local government agencies.” It also opened a series of jobs to help government agencies, government contractors and large enterprises use Meta’s LLMs. Before posting these roles, Meta in November started allowing its AI models to be used for U.S. military purposes.