Menlo Park, CA: Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg has appointed veteran insider Vishal Shah to a prominent new role overseeing the product management for the company’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) division, the social media giant announced Monday.
The move, which was first detailed in an internal memo and reported by the Financial Times, underscores the rising competition among Big Tech firms to pivot top talent and resources toward the rapidly accelerating AI sector. Shah, a long-time executive with a deep product background, previously served as Vice President of Metaverse after a six-year tenure leading product management for Instagram.
Meta is aggressively positioning itself in the global AI race, competing fiercely against industry heavyweights like Microsoft, and leading generative AI startups such as OpenAI and Anthropic, to develop and deploy the most sophisticated AI models. The internal memo indicated that Shah will report to Nat Friedman, Meta’s overall head of AI product.
Leadership Reshuffle in Reality Labs
The shift has triggered a subsequent leadership reorganization within Meta’s Reality Labs (Metaverse) division:
Gabe Aul will now take over all core metaverse work, including avatars and content experiences. He will build on his existing responsibilities leading product efforts for Meta Horizon, the company’s virtual world product.
Ryan Cairns, who currently leads the Quest virtual reality hardware and Meta’s VR operating system, will now report directly to CTO Andrew Bosworth. This streamlined reporting structure aims to accelerate development in the critical VR hardware segment.
Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth emphasized that while AI resources are expanding, the metaverse remains a core priority for the company. He noted that Meta has made significant progress in developing VR hardware, creating the Horizon engine, and building out AI-centric tools to support both initiatives.
This organizational shift closely follows a management shake-up announced just last week, which included the cutting of approximately 600 roles within the company’s Superintelligence Labs unit. That prior announcement was framed as an effort to make Meta’s AI development unit more flexible and responsive to the rapidly evolving technological landscape, positioning the company for its next phase of growth.
