Major labs
Meta
Meta now runs two separate model lines worth knowing apart.
Checked September 19, 2026
No lab publishes a real roadmap
So this page keeps three things apart on purpose. What has already shipped is dated. What is coming is listed only where the lab itself has said it in public, with the source named. Everything else sits under “What to watch” and is my own read of their shipping pattern — informed guessing, not news. If a date matters to you, check the lab's own page linked above.
What they are
Meta now runs two separate model lines that are easy to confuse: a proprietary flagship powering its own apps and glasses, and the open-weight Llama line it became famous for.
The open-weight line is no longer where the frontier work goes, but it is still maintained — and it is still the reason most people can run a capable model on their own machine at all.
What they currently ship
Every model in the directory entry, with its free-tier status.
- Muse Spark 1.3— Meta’s new proprietary flagship (launched 2 September 2026), powering the Meta AI app, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Ray-Ban/Oakley Meta glasses; free to chat with inside Meta’s own apps, API paid-only.Free with limits
- Llama 4 Scout / Maverick / 4.5— Meta’s open-weight line — no longer the frontier priority but still actively maintained; download and self-host.Free, open-weight
- Note: Meta’s own hosted API has no free tier for Llama either. If you want Llama without your own hardware, a third-party host with a free tier (OpenRouter, Groq) is the practical free option, not Meta directly.
What you get for free
The honest version, in one paragraph.
Free if you bring hardware, or if you use Meta's own apps. Llama is free to download and self-host, and Muse Spark is free to chat with inside Meta's products. But if you want Llama through an API without your own machine, use a third-party host with a free tier such as OpenRouter or Groq — not Meta, which has no free API tier at all.
Track record
Things that actually happened, oldest first, each with a date.
- February 2023The first Llama release effectively starts the modern open-weight movement.
- 2024–2025Llama 3 and 4 ship as the default open-weight choice for self-hosting.
- 2 September 2026Muse Spark 1.3 launches as Meta's proprietary flagship, powering the Meta AI app, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Ray-Ban/Oakley Meta glasses.
Confirmed and announced
Only what the lab has stated in public. Nothing here rests on a rumor.
Llama 4 Scout, Maverick and 4.5 remain open-weight and actively maintained, downloadable from Hugging Face.
Announced by the lab
Muse Spark is free to chat with inside Meta's own apps; its API is paid-only, and Meta's hosted API has no free tier for Llama either.
Stated on the lab's own pricing or docs page
What to watch
My own read of where this lab is heading, based on how it has shipped so far. Not announcements — treat these as questions to check, not facts.
- — Whether Llama keeps getting frontier-quality releases now that Muse Spark holds the flagship slot, or quietly becomes a legacy line.
- — Whether any Muse Spark weights are ever published, which would be a real reversal.
- — Glasses-first features, which is where Meta is putting its distinctive effort rather than into raw benchmark scores.
Their ethics and safety policies
What Meta has published about safety and ethics, the documents themselves, what those documents leave out — and my own read, kept separate.
Looking for which tool to actually use? See AI Models Compared