That was then.
The character is being fed his mannerisms, vocal patterns, public statements, and recent thoughts on company strategy. The stated goal: make employees "feel more connected to the founder" through an AI that talks like him, thinks like him, and never has to cancel a one-on-one meeting.
It's a long way from the metaverse era's plastic nightmares.
The project is being led by Meta's newly formed Superintelligence Labs. Scaling the tech has proven difficult—it requires enormous computing power to keep interactions realistic and lag-free. Meta last year acquired two voice companies, PlayAI and WaveForms, as part of that push. The company's projected capital expenditure for 2026 sits between $115 billion and $135 billion, nearly double last year's figure.
Now the bet is on something that looks and sounds like the real thing—to either make employees feel more connected to leadership, or just more supervised by it.
