Meta has announced the return of Robert Fergus as the new head of its Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) lab. A former Research Director at Google DeepMind, Fergus co-founded FAIR with AI pioneer Yann LeCun in 2014 and is now set to lead Meta’s core AI research division once again. The move was confirmed internally by Chief Product Officer Chris Cox following Joelle Pineau’s recent departure.
With extensive experience in advanced AI systems, Fergus aims to push the boundaries of artificial intelligence, including developments in robotics, audio generation, and large language models. In a LinkedIn post, Fergus shared Meta’s commitment to “building human-level experiences that transform how we interact with technology.”
FAIR has been instrumental in foundational AI research at Meta, contributing to models like Llama 1 and Llama 2. However, recent shifts saw many researchers moving to other firms or Meta’s GenAI group, which developed the latest Llama 4 model.