In a significant move for the artificial intelligence community, Yann LeCun, a Turing Award winner and one of the most recognised figures in AI, has declared he will be stepping down from his role as Meta's chief AI scientist at the end of this year.
A New Chapter in AI Research
LeCun made his announcement on Wednesday, 19th November 2025, confirming widespread rumours that had been circulating for over a week. He revealed his plans to form a new startup dedicated to pioneering research into more sophisticated forms of artificial intelligence.
The new company will focus on developing AI systems capable of "understanding the physical world, have persistent memory, can reason, and can plan complex action sequences". This ambitious direction points towards creating AI with capabilities that far exceed current technology.
Meta's Partnership and Broader Context
In a clarifying social media post, LeCun stated that Meta will partner with his new startup. He indicated that while some of the research would align with Meta's commercial objectives, other parts would explore avenues outside the tech giant's immediate interests.
This announcement arrives shortly after Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, initiated a round of job cuts this autumn, eliminating roughly 600 positions within its AI divisions.
A Storied Career in Artificial Intelligence
Yann LeCun's influence on the field of AI is profound. He joined Facebook back in 2013 and was a co-founder of its AI research division, originally known as Facebook AI Research (FAIR). Although he stepped down as the group's director in 2018, he continued to serve as Meta's chief AI scientist.
His career, however, began long before his tenure at Meta. He spent his early years at the image processing department at AT&T Bell Labs in New Jersey, where he worked on AI systems that could 'read' text from digitised images.
Beyond his corporate work, LeCun has maintained a part-time professorship at New York University since 2003. In 2019, his contributions to computer science were globally recognised when he, along with fellow AI pioneers Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton, received the prestigious Turing Award.
His departure marks the end of a significant era at Meta and the beginning of a new, independent venture that could shape the future trajectory of artificial intelligence research.
