Meta Platforms strengthens AI initiative with return of notable former employees

Meta Platforms has acquired another AI startup. With the leadership team of Dreamer, founded in 2024 and specializing in AI agents, a well-known former employee is also returning to the Facebook group. Hugo Barra once led Meta's virtual reality division but left the company about five years ago. Now he is returning as an AI expert, which highlights the recent strategic shift at Meta Platforms: less virtual reality – more artificial intelligence.

Hugo Barra was one of the leading figures at Google in the development of the Android operating system, but moved to Xiaomi in 2013 and became Vice President for Global Operations at the Chinese electronics company. In early 2017, he returned to the USA and became head of Oculus at Facebook. After leaving Meta Platforms in May 2021, he founded Dreamer in 2024, along with David Singleton, the former CTO of Stripe, a payment processor that recently expressed interest in acquiring PayPal.

Dreamer Integration Instead of Acquisition

At Dreamer, they have developed an operating system for AI agents and agentic apps, as Hugo Barra announced on LinkedIn last month. They built on experience from previous roles, such as with the operating systems Symbian, Android, and ChromeOS, as well as software for Oculus VR headsets, which are now marketed as Quest. This AI platform has apparently attracted the interest of Meta Platforms. Because this week David Singleton stated on X that he and his team around Hugo Barra are joining the “Superintelligence Labs” at Meta Platforms.

Meta Platforms has not yet commented on this agreement, but it is apparently not a complete takeover of Dreamer. According to Singleton, the Dreamer employees are moving to the Facebook group as part of a licensing agreement. This also includes Nicholas Jitkoff, who previously worked at Figma, Dropbox, Google, and also at Meta Platforms. He is now responsible for design at Dreamer.

Massive Expansion of AI Expertise at Meta

The Facebook group had a similar agreement with Scale AI last year. This was also not an acquisition, but Meta is investing 14.3 billion US dollars for 49 percent of Scale AI. In return, the founder and CEO, Alexandr Wang, moved to Meta and took over the management of the then newly founded Superintelligence Labs. Alexandr Wang has already networked with his new Dreamer colleagues and welcomed them in a comment on Singleton's post to Meta's AI team.

The strengthening of the Superintelligence team is another step for Meta Platforms towards becoming an AI powerhouse. While the group is cutting back on the highly loss-making Metaverse and making actual layoffs in virtual reality, Meta is investing more in AI. After the founding of the Superintelligence Labs, Meta went on a shopping spree and lured more AI experts to change employers. Recently, Meta acquired the Moltbook platform, which highlights the trend towards AI agents. With the integration of the Dreamer team, Meta is now further focusing on expertise in agentic AI.

(fds)