Hugo Barra's Meta comeback after five years highlights Zuckerberg's AI focus
Barra comes back with his team from Dreamer, a company he launched in 2024
When Hugo Barra was initially at Meta — back when it was still called Facebook — he played a key role in their virtual reality division.
Since his departure nearly five years ago, Meta has shifted its priority from VR to embracing the latest tech trend: artificial intelligence.
This week, Meta has welcomed Barra back as part of their renewed focus on advancing in AI, aiming to keep up with competitors such as Google and OpenAI.
Barra comes back with his team from Dreamer, a company he launched in 2024. The leadership team includes CEO David Singleton, who served as Stripe's technology leader, and co-founder Nicholas Jitkoff, who was a senior design director at Figma.
Barra is now part of Meta's Superintelligence Labs, headed by former Scale AI leader Alexandr Wang, who joined the company last year following a $14.3 billion investment in Scale after Meta's Llama 4 AI models underperformed.
Meta plans to invest up to $135 billion this year primarily in AI infrastructure. However, the organisation has yet to find a solid approach to challenge creators of leading AI models like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
Dreamer has focused on the thriving area of AI agents, and recently launched the beta version of its main product, which Barra called a "novel operating system for AI agents and agentic applications."
"We realised this needed us to completely overhaul current computing systems," Barra, who formerly worked at Google for over five years, posted in a LinkedIn post in February.
"We used lessons from our past projects," he noted, referencing mobile operating systems like Symbian and Android, as well as ChromeOS and the tech behind Oculus' VR headsets, now marketed as Quest.
The new transition involves AI agents, and recently, creators have been attracted to a popular service called OpenClaw, which helps manage AI agents in messaging platforms and personal computers.
Meta is actively delving into technology designed for AI agents. In December, the company spent $2 billion to acquire Singapore-based Manus, founded in China, which helps firms craft AI agents.