Meta is launching a brand new program to incentivize startups to undertake its Llama AI fashions.
This system, Llama for Startups, gives corporations “direct assist” from Meta’s Llama workforce, in addition to funding in sure circumstances. Any U.S.-based agency that’s integrated, has raised lower than $10 million in funding, has a minimum of one developer on workers, and is constructing generative AI purposes is eligible to use by the Could 30 deadline.
“Members might obtain as much as $6,000 monthly for as much as six months to assist them offset the prices of constructing and enhancing their generative AI options,” Meta wrote in a blog post. “Our specialists will work intently with them to get began and discover superior use circumstances of Llama that would profit their startups.”
The launch of the Llama startup program comes as Meta tries to cement its lead within the fiercely aggressive open mannequin house. Whereas the tech large’s Llama fashions have racked up greater than a billion downloads thus far, rivals resembling DeepSeek, Google, and Alibaba’s Qwen threaten to upend Meta’s efforts to ascertain a far-reaching mannequin ecosystem.
Not serving to issues, Llama has suffered a number of setbacks over the previous few months.
The Wall Road Journal final week reported Meta has delayed the rollout of a flagship AI mannequin, Llama 4 Behemoth, over considerations the mannequin underperforms on key benchmarks. In April, Meta needed to fend off allegations that it cheated on a preferred crowdsourced AI benchmark, LM Enviornment. The corporate used a model of its Llama 4 Maverick mannequin “optimized for conversationality” to realize a excessive rating on LM Enviornment, however launched a totally different model of Maverick publicly.
Meta has large ambitions for Llama — and its broader generative AI portfolio. Last year, the corporate made a prediction its generative AI merchandise would rake in $2 billion to $3 billion in income in 2025, and between $460 billion and $1.4 trillion by 2035.
Meta has revenue-sharing agreements with some corporations that host its Llama fashions. The corporate just lately launched an API for customizing Llama releases. And Meta AI, the corporate’s AI assistant powered by Llama, might ultimately present advertisements and supply a subscription with extra options, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in the course of the firm’s Q1 earnings name.
These merchandise have confirmed pricey to construct. In 2024, Meta’s “GenAI” funds was greater than $900 million, and this yr, it might exceed $1 billion. That’s not together with the infrastructure wanted to run and practice the fashions. Meta beforehand stated it plans to spend $60 billion to $80 billion on capital expenditures in 2025, totally on new knowledge facilities.