Mark Zuckerberg Shifts Metaverse Executive Vishal Shah To Boost AI Products
Vishal Shah is a long-time insider who brings a deep product background to the new role.
Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg has appointed insider Vishal Shah to a prominent role in artificial intelligence. He will be heading product management for AI products, the social media giant announced on Monday.
The move, first reported by the Financial Times citing an internal memo, focuses on the rising competition among Big Tech firms to direct top talent and resources toward the booming technology.
Meta is competing against industry heavyweights like Microsoft and leading startups such as OpenAI and Anthropic to build and deploy the most sophisticated AI models.
Meta is shaking things up in its metaverse department with some key leadership changes. Given Vishal Shah's new role in AI, Gabe Aul will now oversee all metaverse work, including avatars and content experiences. He will be building on his current work leading product efforts for Meta Horizon, the company's virtual world product.
Ryan Cairns will continue to lead Quest virtual reality hardware and Meta's VR operating system, but he will now report directly to CTO Andrew Bosworth, the Financial Times reported earlier on the management changes.
These changes come as Meta focuses on advancing its metaverse and AI capabilities. Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth emphasised that the metaverse remains a top priority for the company, and they have made significant progress in building VR hardware, creating a Horizon engine, and developing AI-centric tools.
Who Is Vishal Shah
Vishal Shah is a long-time insider who brings a deep product background to the new role. He previously spent over six years leading product management for Instagram before transitioning in 2021 to become vice president of Metaverse.
A Meta spokesperson confirmed the appointment to Reuters but declined to offer further details. The internal memo indicated that Shah will report to Nat Friedman, Meta's overall head of AI product.
This organisational shift follows closely on the heels of another management shake-up announced last week, where Meta revealed that it would be cutting approximately 600 roles within its Superintelligence Labs unit.
That previous announcement was framed as an effort to make the company's AI development unit more flexible and responsive to the rapidly evolving technological landscape.
