💼 Airbnb Steals Meta's AI Chief

Plus OpenAI's $10B bet and Meta kills 1,500 metaverse jobs

January 15, 2026

Reading time: 5 minutes

🗞️In this edition

  • Airbnb Hires Meta's Llama AI Chief as New CTO

  • Sponsored: Create Ads That Feel Human With Maxfusion.ai

  • OpenAI Signs $10 Billion Deal With Nvidia Competitor

  • Meta Ditches Metaverse for AI Wearables, Cuts 1,500 Jobs

  • In other AI news –

    • Bandcamp Bans All AI-Generated Music

    • Nvidia Backs Privacy-First Social Media Startup

    • Disney Copies TikTok With Vertical Videos

  • 4 must-try AI tools

The money is moving faster than most people realize.

One company just hired away a competitor's AI leader. Another committed $10 billion to chips most people haven't heard of. And a third is cutting 1,500 jobs from its most expensive division.

Each decision reveals where the real opportunities are. What's working. What's not. Who's winning. Who's scrambling.

The pattern isn't obvious until you see who's hiring, who's spending, and who's cutting. Then the direction becomes clear.

This edition looks at the strategic shifts happening right now and what they tell us about where AI is actually heading.

What's happening:

Airbnb named Ahmad Al-Dahle as its new Chief Technology Officer on Wednesday. He led Meta's generative AI efforts and oversaw the team behind Llama models.

Al-Dahle replaces Ari Balogh, who stepped down in December after seven years. The timing matters because Meta just restructured its AI team.

He's one of several top AI leaders leaving Meta recently. Yann LeCun also departed as Zuckerberg shifted from open-source to commercial models.

Al-Dahle spent 16 years at Apple before Meta, working on iPhone display and Apple's self-driving car project. CEO Brian Chesky says he joins at a "pivotal moment."

Airbnb plans to launch AI search in 2026 that acts like a human travel agent. The feature will use your history to personalize recommendations.

Why this is important:

This shows Meta's AI restructuring created a talent exodus. When you sideline leaders and buy Scale AI for $14.3 billion, people leave.

Airbnb gets someone who built Llama from scratch. That's rare foundation model expertise most travel companies don't have.

The timing of leaving Meta is notable. Al-Dahle joins Airbnb right as Meta shifts strategy. That suggests he disagreed with the new direction.

Airbnb's AI ambitions are bigger than people realize. They're not adding chatbots. They want to rebuild travel planning from search to booking.

For travelers, Airbnb becomes much more proactive. Instead of searching, you describe what you want and AI finds it based on your history.

Comments from the editor:

Travel companies are stealing AI talent from tech giants. First Expedia grabbed someone from Google. Now Airbnb takes Meta's Llama leader.

Meta is bleeding people. LeCun left. Al-Dahle left. Others are leaving. Buying Scale AI for $14 billion doesn't fix losing the people who actually built your AI.

Airbnb wants AI to plan your entire trip. That's much harder than it sounds. Travel is complicated. People want weird specific things.

The "AI concierge" idea isn't new. Companies have tried this before. The question is whether it actually works better than just searching yourself.

Chesky calls this "real connection" instead of algorithms. The real test is whether Airbnb's AI actually understands what makes a good vacation.

Maxfusion is remaking how video ads are made by using its proprietary RIZZ AI model, which generates AI actors that laugh, cry, and sell like real people - all from a single image. 

Why everyone is using Maxfusion:

  • Launch more ad variations so you find winners faster

  • Lower creative costs while increasing testing volume

  • Get videos that feel human enough to convert

What's happening:

OpenAI signed a $10 billion deal with Cerebras on Wednesday for 750 megawatts of computing power through 2028. The capacity rolls out in stages starting this year.

Cerebras builds wafer-scale chips that combine compute, memory, and bandwidth on single giant chips. The company claims responses up to 15 times faster than Nvidia's GPU-based systems.

OpenAI will use Cerebras for low-latency tasks like AI agents and voice chat. When speed matters more than raw power, Cerebras handles the workload instead of Nvidia or AMD chips.

This adds to OpenAI's massive infrastructure deals. They committed to 6 gigawatts from AMD and 10 gigawatts from Nvidia. Now Cerebras gets 750 megawatts.

The deal helps both companies. OpenAI diversifies beyond Nvidia. Cerebras reduces dependence on G42, the UAE company that accounted for 87 percent of its revenue in early 2024.

Why this is important:

This shows OpenAI is building speed options, not just power. Nvidia chips offer raw compute. Cerebras offers fast responses. Different tools for different jobs.

The $10 billion validates Cerebras as a real Nvidia alternative. Most AI companies buy only Nvidia. OpenAI is betting billions that alternatives work for specific tasks.

Speed matters more than people realize. When AI responds in real time, users stay longer and run more valuable tasks. That's OpenAI's bet on Cerebras.

For Cerebras, this is existential. Being 87 percent dependent on one customer is dangerous. OpenAI diversifies their revenue and proves the technology works at scale.

The timing matters. Cerebras withdrew its IPO plans in October. This deal gives them credibility to try again. Big customer diversification helps IPO prospects.

What's happening:

Meta laid off 1,500 people from Reality Labs this week. That's 10 percent of the division that builds VR headsets and metaverse products.

The company is shifting money from virtual reality to AI wearables. Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are selling so well that Meta and EssilorLuxottica might double production from 10 million to 20 million units this year.

Three VR game studios are closing completely. Armature Studio, Twisted Pixel, and Sanzaru Games all shut down as part of the cuts.

Reality Labs has lost over $70 billion since late 2020. Last quarter alone, the division lost $4.4 billion on just $470 million in revenue.

Zuckerberg told the VR team he wants the division to become "more sustainable." That means fewer experimental projects and more focus on what's actually selling.

Why this is important:

This shows the metaverse bet failed. After changing the company name to Meta and spending $70 billion, Zuckerberg is cutting his losses.

The Ray-Ban glasses success matters. People want AI they can wear, not virtual worlds they have to enter. That's a fundamental shift in strategy.

Losing $4.4 billion per quarter while making $470 million in revenue isn't sustainable. The math doesn't work. Even Meta can't keep funding that forever.

For the 1,500 employees laid off, this is brutal timing. They spent years building metaverse products that are now being shut down while the company pivots to something else.

The three closed studios made some of the best VR games. Resident Evil 4 VR was successful. Closing those teams means Meta is exiting VR game development entirely.

  1. Flair - An AI design tool that helps users quickly and affordably generate high-quality marketing assets

  2. RoomGPT - Allows users to take a picture of their room and generate a new version of their room in different themes

  3. Interactive Mathematics - A platform that provides math lessons and an AI-powered math problem solver to help students improve their math skills  

  4. WellyBox - A tool that helps users track and manage their receipts and invoices

The money keeps moving.

From VR to wearables. From one chip maker to another. From companies bleeding talent to companies grabbing it.

None of these moves are small. $10 billion deals. 1,500 job cuts. Poaching executives who built the competition's flagship products.

What matters is the direction. Companies are betting on speed over power, wearables over virtual worlds, and proven talent over internal development.

If you have any feedback for us, please reply and let us know how we did. We're always looking to improve.

How did we like this version?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Interested in featuring your services with us? Email us at [email protected]