Meta has recruited Trapit Bansal, a prominent researcher from OpenAI, to join its new AI superintelligence team. Bansal, who left OpenAI in June, played a crucial role in the development of reinforcement learning at the company and contributed to OpenAI’s first AI reasoning model, known as o1. His move marks a significant addition to Meta’s efforts to build advanced AI models, particularly as the company races to match the capabilities of rivals like OpenAI, Google, and DeepSeek.
Bansal joins a growing list of elite AI researchers that Meta has attracted in recent months. Former OpenAI researchers Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai have also come on board, alongside other notable figures like Jack Rae from DeepMind and Johan Schalkwyk from the startup Sesame. This hiring spree reflects Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s ambition to build a leading AI research unit, with reports suggesting he is offering highly competitive compensation packages to top talent.
Although OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has downplayed the impact of Meta’s poaching efforts, insisting that his core team remains intact, the shift in personnel underscores the fierce competition in the AI space. Meta’s new AI team aims to develop frontier reasoning models capable of powering AI agents that can tackle more complex tasks. This would allow Meta to strengthen its internal AI infrastructure and support products across its business units, much like DeepMind does for Google.
Meta is also said to have considered acquiring AI startups led by notable figures such as Ilya Sutskever and Mira Murati, though those talks did not materialise. Instead, the company is focusing on building its capabilities from within. The goal is to create AI systems that can reason through problems more effectively, delivering better performance and reliability across use cases from customer service bots to internal automation tools.
As OpenAI prepares to release its own open AI reasoning model, Meta faces growing pressure to keep pace. But with Bansal and a formidable team of researchers on board, the company is positioning itself to play a leading role in the next generation of AI development. Whether Meta can turn its talent investments into breakthroughs remains to be seen, but its intent to compete at the highest level is now undeniable.