Meta is back on the AI leaderboard with its new family of Wonder models

By Christine Ji

The company's stock was up more than 3% following the release of Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full, which analysts expect to drive new business opportunities

Muse Wonder will soon power Meta's AI agent Muse, the company shared.

Meta Platforms is cementing its status as a serious artificial-intelligence player with the Monday release of its latest family of models.

Shares of Meta (META) were rising more than 3% on Monday following the announcement of Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full, the company's two most capable models to date. After completely overhauling its AI efforts last year, the company is touting the release as its definitive return to the top ranks of the industry's leaderboard.

The lightweight Muse Wonder is available today for developers through the Meta Model API and Muse Code. The full version of the model, Muse Wonder Full, is available for Muse Code subscribers.

In an X post, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg called Muse Wonder "our new family of frontier models with state-of-the-art performance for personal and professional agentic work." The models feature domain expertise in fields such as law, finance and health.

According to Meta's benchmark data, the flagship Muse Wonder Full beats out top OpenAI and Anthropic models on memory retention, financial analysis and long-horizon coding tasks - though rival models maintain advantages in other areas.

The Muse Wonder family comes after the breakout success of Meta's Muse agent, which racked up over 5 million downloads in September. And Meta is looking to put its newest models to work behind the popular assistant, as Muse Wonder will soon power experiences in the Muse agent.

While Muse access currently requires a paid subscription, Zuckerberg shared that the company plans to eventually expand the upgraded intelligence to all users.

The launch is a major vote of confidence in Meta's AI capabilities and the Meta Superintelligence Labs team, Baird analyst Colin Sebastian wrote in a Monday note, citing the models' capabilities and new monetization areas.

Known internally as "Watermelon" before the official announcement, the model launch was highly anticipated by Wall Street and industry experts. In a September note, BofA analyst Justin Post wrote that the launch could bring frontier-level capabilities and be a long-term catalyst for Meta's stock.

Sebastian highlighted that both models are "directly monetizable" through Muse Code subscriptions and Meta Model API usage, "as well as indirectly through Wonder's ability to help Muse and other apps remain competitive, expand [total addressable market] opportunities and provide Meta with new business models."

Sebastian added that Instagram and Facebook could benefit from new user experiences as well as better ad recommendations - though Meta emphasized that personal Muse conversations will not be shared directly with its advertising systems.

Also: Who will benefit more from AI agents when it comes to spending - companies or you?

-Christine Ji

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10-12-26 1543ET