Schedule Disruption: Meta Delays Release of Flagship Avocado AI Model

The artificial intelligence arms race does not forgive mistakes. On March 13, 2026, it was revealed that Meta is forced to delay the launch of its new flagship model, "Avocado," until at least May or June.

Insiders at The New York Times report problems during the training scaling phase. The industry has hit the ceiling of synthetic data, and ensuring performance parity with current competitors requires exponentially more time for inference and testing. Delaying the release is a severe blow to Mark Zuckerberg's position in the open-source segment. The window of opportunity is narrowing: while Meta recalibrates its model's weights, competitors will have time to capture developers' attention and take market share.

Source: The New York Times / Reuters