Meta's AI chief, Alexandr Wang, announced an internal milestone today: the company's upcoming Watermelon model has matched OpenAI's GPT-5.5. He made the claim during an internal town hall, citing widely tracked AI benchmarks, though he did not specify which ones.
The update comes as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg doubles down on AI investments, betting heavily on the company's in-house model development. Meta has long struggled to close the gap with rivals like OpenAI and Google, but Wang's statement signals a potential breakthrough.
Wang revealed that Watermelon, the successor to the Avocado model, is "currently in training" and uses "an order of magnitude more compute" than its predecessor. Avocado was Meta's internal codename for Muse Spark, a family of models released in April.
If Watermelon indeed matches GPT-5.5's performance, it could reshape the competitive landscape, intensifying the race for AI supremacy. Meta's open-source strategy may also force rivals to reconsider their proprietary approaches.
However, internal claims are not yet externally validated, and early-stage training results often shift before final release. Outside experts caution that benchmark comparisons can be misleading without full transparency.