Meta says its next AI model matches OpenAI’s GPT-5.5

Meta's ↘ 4.45% chief AI officer Alexandr Wang told employees in an internal town hall that the company's upcoming AI model, codenamed Watermelon, has caught up with OpenAI's GPT-5.5 on closely followed AI benchmarks, according to Business Insider. The claim, if accurate, would represent the clearest evidence yet that Meta's multibillion-dollar AI push is beginning to close the gap with industry leaders.africa.businessinsider

What Wang Said

"Watermelon, our next model after Avocado, is currently in training," Wang said during the town hall, according to a person familiar with the matter. "Watermelon uses an order of magnitude more compute than Avocado," he added, referring to Meta's internal codename for Muse Spark, the model the company released in April.cryptobriefing+1

Wang did not specify which benchmarks were used to measure the model's performance, and independent verification of the claims has not been provided. Meta declined to comment, and OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.africa.businessinsider

A Moving Target

The benchmark target Wang cited — GPT-5.5 — was released by OpenAI in April. However, OpenAI debuted its most powerful model yet, GPT-5.6, late last month, though it has not been made generally available, based on the U.S. government's requests. That means even if Watermelon matches GPT-5.5, Meta may still trail OpenAI's frontier.aitoolsrecap+1

Meta's AI efforts have faced repeated setbacks. Its previous model, Avocado, was originally targeted for late 2025 but was delayed multiple times after internal benchmarks showed shortfalls in reasoning, coding, and writing compared with rivals. It eventually shipped in April as Muse Spark but did not match or exceed models from OpenAI or Anthropic.africa.businessinsider+3

The Broader Race

Mark Zuckerberg has poured resources into closing Meta's AI gap. The company expects to spend between $125 billion and $145 billion this year on chips, data centers, and other infrastructure. Zuckerberg appointed Wang — the former Scale AI founder — to head Meta Superintelligence Labs in mid-2025, offering top AI researchers hundreds of millions of dollars each to join.finance.yahoo+2

Whether Watermelon ultimately delivers on its benchmark promise remains to be seen. The model is still in training, and the AI industry's pace means the finish line keeps moving.