Meta unveils its most powerful AI model, nearing top competitors

Meta spent years being the company that gave away its AI models for free. That era is quietly ending. On September 2, 2026, Meta released Muse Spark 1.3, its most capable AI model to date, and opened API access to developers the following day on a paid basis. The move is a meaningful signal: the company best known for making its Llama models freely available is now building a proprietary frontier product it intends to monetize directly. Alexandr Wang, Meta’s chief AI officer, said the model’s capabilities are increasingly comparable to leading offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic. From Llama to Muse: a quiet strategic pivot The Muse family represents a genuine philosophical shift for Meta’s AI division. The company formalized the transition in April 2026 with the first Muse Spark release, then shipped version 1.1 in July and version 1.2 on August 5, before arriving at 1.3 less than a month later. The Llama series, which made Meta a favorite among researchers and developers who wanted to run powerful models locally without licensing fees, is no longer the primary vehicle for the company’s frontier ambitions. Muse Spark is closed, API-gated, and paid, which puts it structurally in the...