Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has moved his desk next to the company’s in-house artificial intelligence researchers and started coding himself, according to reports.

Business Insider reported on April 14 that as competition in generative AI intensifies, Meta’s CEO is getting deeply involved in development and leading a revamp of its AI business.

Dina Powell McCormick (디나 파월 맥코믹), Meta’s president, said at the Semafor World Economy Summit in Washington that Zuckerberg sits in the AI lab with Alexandr Wang and Nat Friedman and codes all day. She said researchers joke that Zuckerberg also gives advice while coding.

McCormick said Zuckerberg feels he must understand things to that level to make the company’s AI models stronger. The move comes as competition with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini intensifies.

Zuckerberg is also known to be closely involved in Meta’s AI development and hiring. Bloomberg reported last June that Zuckerberg rearranged desk assignments at the Menlo Park headquarters so new hires would sit nearby. The Financial Times reported that Zuckerberg spends 5 to 10 hours a week coding on multiple AI projects at Meta and reviews other employees’ work.

Meta is also continuing large-scale investment centred on a new AI organisation called Superintelligence Labs. It invested about $15 billion in Scale AI and recruited co-founder Alexandr Wang. Nat Friedman, a former GitHub CEO, also joined Meta in July and is leading AI product development. Zuckerberg has also been reported to be closely involved in hiring for the unit.

Meta has been seen as lagging behind other hyperscalers and leading model companies in the generative AI race. Recently, however, signs have emerged within Meta that some investment results are becoming visible. Meta shares rose 8 percent after Superintelligence Labs unveiled its first new AI model, "Muse Spark", and Zuckerberg called it the organisation’s first milestone.