Meta’s AI “Behemoth” Stumbles as Engineers Scramble to Fix Performance Gaps

The Delay That Spooked Investors

Meta’s next-generation AI model, codenamed “Behemoth,” is stuck in development hell. Engineers are struggling to achieve meaningful performance improvements over earlier Llama models, forcing the company to delay its launch—twice. Originally slated for April, then June, insiders now whisper it may not arrive until fall. The market reacted swiftly: Meta’s stock (META) dropped over 2% by Thursday’s close, with a P/E ratio of 25.05 as of May 15.

“This isn’t just a hiccup—it’s a full-scale recalibration,” says an anonymous Meta AI researcher. “Behemoth was supposed to be our leapfrog moment. Now we’re playing catch-up.”

Billions at Stake, Talent in Flux

Meta has bet big on AI, planning up to $65 billion in capital expenditures this year alone. But money can’t buy breakthroughs. Eleven of the 14 original Llama model authors have left the company, leaving Behemoth’s fate in the hands of a reshuffled team. Publicly, Meta insists Behemoth outperforms rivals like OpenAI and Google (GOOGL). Privately, engineers cite “training instability” and “unpredictable output degradation.”

An Industry-Wide Slowdown

Meta isn’t alone in hitting roadblocks. OpenAI has quietly pushed back GPT-5, while Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Opus—though imminent—also missed its initial deadline. The pattern suggests a broader reckoning: after years of breakneck progress, AI development is hitting technical and computational limits. For Meta, the stakes are existential. Without Behemoth, its vision of AI-driven social ecosystems and metaverse integration stalls—and investors’ patience wears thin.