Meta, with more than 60 offices, about 80,000 employees, may have two Mark Zuckerbergs: one human and one digital. The company is reportedly developing an AI-powered version of its CEO that can communicate with employees in the absence of the real Zuckerberg, according to the Financial Times. The avatar will be trained on Zuckerberg’s photos, voice and mannerisms, people familiar with the project told the FT. The effort coincides with Zuckerberg’s aggressive push into all things AI, as he continues to bet on new technologies to shape the future of Meta.
Meta did not respond to requests for comment from the Observer.
Zuckerberg, 41, has emerged as one of the most aggressive investors in AI. Meta expects to yield between $115 billion and $135 billion AI related infrastructure only in 2026. The company also splashed cash to hire top talent in its AI division, the newly formed Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), with eye-catching offers that include $100 million in signing bonuses.
MSL, chaired by former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang, launched its first major product earlier this month: Muse Spark, a large-scale language model designed to compete with other frontier AI systems. Additional models in the “Muse” series are scheduled to be released later this year.
But Meta’s ambitions go beyond developing language models. The company is also creating photorealistic 3D avatars that can chat with users, with a Zuckerberg clone serving as the first test case for employee feedback. If successful, the project could expand to allow influencers and creators to produce their own versions of AI.
Zuckerberg isn’t the only executive trying to replicate himself with AI Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski used his own version of AI to deliver quarterly earnings, while Zoom CEO Eric Yuan discussed training digital “clones” to attend meetings. Even hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio has a digital avatar that shares his investment principles online.
In addition to the avatar facing employees, Zuckerberg is said to be developing another system: an AI agent for the CEO that can help him with daily management tasks such as quickly retrieving information, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Meta has long been interested in combining AI with humanity. In 2023, it launched chatbots modeled after celebrities like Snoop Dogg and Naomi Osaka. But the company later faced criticism over the feature’s impact on young people’s mental health and restricted younger users from accessing it earlier this year.
Avatars have been central to Zuckerberg’s vision in the past. It was a defining feature of his push into the metaverse, which came after his 2022 VR avatar drew derision for its low-quality graphics. Meta has since shifted its focus to the metaverse in a pivot so sweeping that it now defines the company’s new identity around AI.
If all goes according to plan, Zuckerberg’s next digital persona may ultimately have a longer lifespan than his last.
